“The key point to note is not the therapeutic effects of writing in a journal but rather the fact that regular journal keeping will influence the way you think or feel about a specific topic.”
That startling statement is from Angela Booth’s article called “Change Your Life with Your Journal.”
Now, I’ve journaled off and on for years. I journaled through many down periods in my life, and it was very therapeutic. (Any Julia Cameron “Morning Pages” fans out there?) But Angela’s statement above caught my eye–and it hooked me in.
What a Mental Shift!
What big change did Angela accomplish in her writing career by using journaling? It’s a change I would give almost anything to also achieve! This is the leap of growth that journaling allowed her to make:
“I could see that unless I changed my reluctance to market my writing, I would be stuck at a level of income I knew I could surpass… Journaling helped me change my mind about marketing my writing. I went from someone who became physically ill at the thought of sending out query letters and making cold calls to market my copywriting, to someone who LOVES marketing.”
What a change!
Let Me See…
I tried her idea this morning. In my journal I wrote about a writing task I had put off for weeks–and it had grown in my mind to mammoth proportions. I wrote about why I didn’t want to do it, what I feared would happen if I failed, all that angst stuff.
And then later I sat down to do that task, wondering if the journaling had helped. I got the job done–it took 25 minutes according to my kitchen timer–and minus the angst. I was amazed.
Fears Be Gone!
Give this idea a try with something in your writing life that has you stumped or scared or blocked. It can be anything: writing a query letter, taking a story to your critique group, talking to someone at a conference…
What a great idea. I do the same thing as you, make things much bigger in my head than they have to be. I just finally got re-motivated to send things out, I also have a terrible fear of it. Journaling may help me even more! Thank you for sharing!
Megan
Megan, it amazes me how much writing about a problem can shrink it down to a size where you can tackle it. Even more surprising is when I actually DO the task. It doesn’t matter if it is writing an article or doing the dishes: it is almost never as time-consuming or scary as I have imagined it to be! 🙂