What Is Journaling For Self-Awareness And How To Practice It

What is Journaling For Self-Awareness?

Journaling For Self-Awareness is something similar to keeping a diary, but the difference is that beyond simply documenting your day, journaling has the following objectives:

• Get to know yourself better and answer key questions about yourself to unleash your full potential in various areas of your life.
• Get closer to the best version of you .
• Build the life you want to live.

In journaling you ask yourself certain strategic questions that make you think and reflect on a deeper level and come to your own conclusions. If you master it very well, you will see that you can even become something like your own therapist.

There is a saying that “When you are inside the jar, you cannot read the label”, and asking yourself questions helps you, precisely, to be able to see from outside the jar.

Journaling is an excellent self-discovery tool as it helps you clear your mind about who you are, what you want in life and what your purpose is in this world .

Our brain is programmed to solve problems. That is why when someone asks you a question, your brain immediately kicks in and tries to find an answer. So the best way to solve those “existential crises” or things that go around your head and that have you uneasy is to start looking for answers to those questions .

How to practice Journaling to get to know yourself better?

If you want to experience the benefits of journaling, there are 5 requirements that are essential for it to work for you:

• Write by hand. The fact of writing with your own hand makes you better order and rank your ideas and thoughts.
• Buy yourself a notebook or notebook that you like very much so that you can take pleasure and love in this activity. I ordered this on Amazon and I am immensely happy with it. And you can also buy a fancy pen or use colored pens to add that creative and fun touch.
• Answer the questions as if no one else will read what you write. Be 100% honest and sincere. This journal has a padlock in case you fear it will get into the wrong hands.
• Ask the questions from a positive or empowering perspective . For example, instead of asking yourself “why am I a disaster?”, Ask yourself “what is the ideal version of myself like?”, “What can I do to get closer to my best version?”, And so on.
• It is advisable to do it on a daily basis at the time of day that you feel best. So find a time when you can focus and concentrate to the fullest.
• Keep in mind that the first days you may feel it as something strange and you do not have so much fluency or ease, but I promise you that as you do it more frequently, you will see how it flows more naturally and ends up becoming like food. indispensable for your being.
• Review your past annotations from time to time to remember the findings obtained or delve into certain questions that need it.

Rob Dial, leader and coach of personal development and entrepreneurship, recommends in his mini journaling course the technique that I am going to share with you below.

The journaling is started by a question and seeking to respond to it.

Technique What, Who, How, When, Where and Why

We have already mentioned that journaling focused on self-knowledge is based on asking questions, but what questions?

The basic questions of journalism are an excellent way to start. These are:

• That
• Who
• How
• When
• Where
• Why

Have you realized that all news seeks to answer these questions?

The question you start with is Level 1.

Let’s take the following as an example of an initial question:

Level 1: “How am I self-sabotaging?”

And hence, the answer for this question could be:

“I’m self-sabotaging by not getting up early to use that time on things that get me closer to my goal.”

This first question would be Level 1. And now, to advance to Level 2, you are going to take this answer and you are going to ask the distinctive questions of journalism which are what, who, how, when, where and why.

So continuing with the previous example whose answer was “I’m self-sabotaging by not getting up early to use that time on things that bring me closer to my goal”, at a Level 2, the possible questions to this answer could be:

• What is it that keeps me getting up earlier?
• Who could help me make this happen?
• How I can motivate me to wake me up before?
• When am I going to sleep for work not cost me up?
• Where should I put the alarm clock to not be tempted to stay longer sleeping?
• Why do I want to get up earlier?

Grades:

• You don’t necessarily have to force it and ask each and every question (what, who, how, when, where, and why). See which ones apply best for each case.
• You can repeat more than one question if you see that there is “more to dig into”. For example, other “hows” that come to mind that we could add to the list of questions above would be:
• How I would benefit me up earlier?
• How I can sleep earlier the day before?
• How would I feel if I had a morning routine that impelled me to achieve my goals?

And now, to get to the next level, which in this case would be Level 3, what you would have to do is take each of the answers and ask them new questions. So, continuing with the previous example, in a Level 3 we could take one of the questions that was:

Level 2: “What prevents me from getting up earlier?”

Whose answer could be:

“Well, I don’t feel so much desire or motivation to start the day”

And now, at a Level 3, ask this answer new questions like:

• What do I feel I am missing to feel more motivated to start the day?
• Who can serve as an example to see the benefits of waking up earlier?
• How I can make an entertaining morning routine let me want to wake before?
• When should I get up to give me time to do everything I want in my morning routine?
• Where should I go to make me feel good right after getting up?
• Why do not I’m getting up wanting to start the day?

And to reach Level 4 you would have to do the same: answer these questions and ask new questions to those answers. And so on…

Rob Dial, leader and expert coach in personal development and entrepreneurship, recommends going down to 6 levels deep (or more if possible) because that is when you generally get to the “root” of the problem and understand the true ones in greater detail. causes and the question you are seeking to resolve through journaling.

So go as deep as possible and you will know more about yourself.

Sample questions to get you started
As we have already seen, it all starts with a question. And the initial questions can lead to anything you are trying to solve. Are you struggling with your self-esteem? Do you doubt yourself? Your career? Money? Relationships? Any topic that makes you restless or that does not leave you alone.

Some examples of questions that can help you get started in the world of journaling are:

• How am I feeling right now?
• Why I do what I do?
• What would a perfect day be like in my life?
• How can I improve myself?
• How am I self-sabotaging or walking away from the best version of me? (procrastination, destructive self-talk, etc.)
• What habits do I need to stop, start and maintain?
• What is my dream
• What things do I have to stop doing, what others to start doing, and what to keep doing?
• Why am I in this world?
• What is my life purpose ?

Regarding the latter, did you know that you can use journaling to find your life purpose? If it is something that may interest you, check this article: Practical Guide: Find Your Life Purpose through Journaling

Exercises to do once a week

In addition to the characteristic questions of journalism ( what, who, how, when and why), which you can work through daily exercises, you can also incorporate a weekly exercise with other techniques that are extremely revealing and that will help you do much more. actionable this process of personal improvement through journaling.

CRIPES technique

The Cripes technique takes its name from the first letter of the English words C areer, R elationships, I NTELLECTUAL, P hysical, E motional & S piritual, which in Spanish represent the following dimensions of the person:

• Professional / Career
• Relations
• Intellectual
• Physical
• Emotional
• Spiritual

And the idea is each week to rate how you feel in each of your personal dimensions on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best possible rating and 1 the worst.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel in the professional / career dimension?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel about the social / relationships dimension?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel on the intellectual dimension?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel in the physical dimension?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel on the emotional dimension?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel in the spiritual dimension?

And suppose that your answer to question 4 about the physical dimension was a 7, now you could ask yourself the traditional questions of journalism which are: what, who, how, when, where and why.

• What do I need to do to raise that 7 to a 9?
• In what would be the difference of two points?
• Where I can exercise?
• Who could be my instructor?
• Etc

And so with each dimension. The purpose of you doing this weekly assessment is to find out if you are moving the needle in each of your personal dimensions and, if not, analyze what may be missing and what to do about it.

Technique “Stop, Start, Continue”
The “stop, start, continue” technique consists of analyzing what actions you should:

• Stop doing (stop)
• Which others should you start to incentivize (start)
• And finally, which ones should you keep doing (continue)

You can apply this technique to CRIPES questions (personal dimensions). For example, for the previous question “On a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel in the physical dimension?” whose answer was “7”, you might ask yourself:

Question: What should I stop eating to improve my physical appearance?
Answer: I should stop eating junk food

Question: What should I start doing to improve my physical appearance?
Answer: Get up early to go to the gym.

Question: What should I continue to do?
Answers: Eat fruits and vegetables. Drink 2 liters of water a day.

You can also apply this same technique to other aspects of your life such as habits.

Ask yourself:

• What bad habits should I leave behind?
• What habits should I start incorporating into my routine?
• What habits should I keep practicing?

And you can do the same with other issues in your life such as relationships (what relationships should you cut because they are toxic, what relationships should you foster and what relationships should you maintain), money, travel, etc.

Questions to become the best version of you
“Success is something you attract as a result of the person you become” -Jim Rhon

We tend to think that success is something we have to go to achieve. But it’s not like that. Success comes to you as you work to become the best version of yourself . It comes as the result of having habits, attitudes, thoughts and beliefs typical of a successful person.

Answering the following questions will help you to know what the ideal version of yourself is like and to detect what you need to do to become your best version:

• What would the perfect or ideal version of myself do when the alarm goes off?
• How do you talk to yourself? What is said in your internal dialogue?
• Who would he hang out with?
• How is your morning routine?
• What do you do in your day to day? Describe your routine or what it would look like one day in your shoes.
• How much time do you spend on social media?
• What habits do you have?
• What are your qualities and strengths?
• That eats?
• How do you spend your weekends?
• Where does it go?
• Etc.

Defining in detail what the ideal version of yourself would be will help you compare the person you are today vs. the person you want to become. The question now is to define what you have to do to get there .

And for this, something that I advise you is, every day before going to sleep, write in a journal 3 things that you have done to become the best version of yourself. Remember that it is about progress, not perfection.

You will see that doing these journaling exercises week after week you will notice an incredible change because you will be clear about what is preventing you from achieving success, what you need to do to get where you want to go and how to become the person you are called to be .

From my own experience I tell you that journaling focused on self-knowledge can change your life, but it is important that you be consistent and that you take a liking to it.

At the beginning, the truth is that you can feel something strange or clumsy as it happened to me because it is simply something you are not used to. But as you practice it, you will get used to it and it will happen with much more ease and naturalness.