The Value in Daily Journaling of Your Favorite Activities
ByEach day I write in my calendar book the weather, the height of the local waves and my experience surfing that day. I also note if I ran my stairs first as warm up. This allows me to view my progress and envision what I want to be able to write on the next entry.
Since I want to increase my fitness and my surfing capability, daily entries allow me to get a perspective of where I think I am and where I want to be. It is like being a third party observer.
Then, each week I write a report on my website writing activities to my friend Jim Greenwood and save my reports in a continuing file on my hard drive. They are segments that allow me to see if I am conscious of any progress or changes. They are also stepping stones to somewhere as opposed to unconsciously engaging in the process.
Jim has always said that writing is a good process to see what is on your mind and taking small steps is the way to progress. Tossly.com.
The writings sort of clear my head; they journal my progress. They create a fresh start until the next entry. In the mornings, I create by writing posts for my websites. Then I create my surfing experience by visualizing what I want to accomplish or practice.
The writings would immediately expose if I was in a flat spot with no aspirations. They tell me how I feel about what I am doing. They bring out the most noteworthy or exciting part of my experiences and progress. On bad days, I get in touch with my frustrations and that gives me a point for rebound and improvement.
I keep thinking I will look back some day and enjoy my progress or just get in touch with what I was experiencing at a particular time. Maybe my future grandchildren will read the process of how their grandfather became a famous surfer.
It keeps me accountable for my time and thoughts. If you are a regular reader of my posts you will recall I even reported to you on my January’s progress. That gives me a fresh slate to create new plateaus for February anticipating that I will report back to you.
I now become accountable to you for learning more than I knew in January.
The value was also brought home to me in reading Alan Fines book “You Already Know How to Be Great”. When working with clients in sports and especially business, he gets them to reveal and accept ownership of their own talents, aspirations, and then future plans.
One tennis student couldn’t get the ball on the appropriate side of the court and in bounds. Alan could have told him what to do. It’s what he was getting paid to do.
But Allan has learned that the students already had heard enough coaching on the proper things to do. I remember when I was learning how to ski, an expert friend of mine told me at least 20 things to think about on edging, balance, and turning. When you are descending a hill you are only thinking about crashing and don’t have time to run down the check list.
Alan has learned to get inside the students head to see if there is a schism between what they are being told and what they are thinking. He asked this one student what he was thinking as he saw the ball coming toward him. By getting the students mind off the lessons and concentrating on one specific item, like looking for the seams, it freed the students mind to let his body react normally.
I learned in skiing that instead of concentrating on getting all 20 tips into one run, I would work on one tip at a time. There is a neuroplasticity to the brain where one message given repeatedly can create new growth and recognition.
Getting too many messages at once creates over load. Don’t we experience that in our daily lives? We are thinking of 20 things at a time and not concentrating on one item. Even when we are working on one item we still have 20 items playing music in the background.
If we were concentrating on one item only, chances are we would fall into “flow” and thoroughly enjoy the experience. In fact, “flow” is like runner’s high and can become addictive. It is where we concentrate on one activity and eliminate all distractions. If we can engage without distractions, it creates true happiness.
Constantly freezing our thoughts about something we like in writing allows us to more consciously engage in a process of remembering them and focusing on them. Each time we list our current status, it allows us to then think of what we would like to see in our next status report.
Allan has found that the more specific his clients/students can get about what they are seeing in their experience, the more likely they are to see the next step.
We learn to think about what we think. We can be observers as to what is going on in our mind.
Whole brain thinking engages the left brain to write out specifics about a problem or goal. Then when we give it a rest or suspend the left brain thinking to engage in other activities, the right brain starts to cogitate on solutions or alternatives. The left brain can then come back to evaluate the best alternatives. Revelations, epiphanies, and ahas come from right brain thinking while we are engaged in monotonous exercise activities like running, gardening, showering, or sleeping.
Writing down what you do and enjoy gives you more focus than you would imagine. It helps you decide what is important about the activity. Ever have something exciting happen to you and you want to call someone and tell them about it.
I look for the opportunities to create memorable experiences. I am visualizing where I would enjoy being next. I don’t like goal setting but I enjoy visualizing the next happy plateau.
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Read “You Already Know How to Be Great” by Alan Fine
Read “Whole Brain Thinking” by Jacelyn Wonder
See Tossly.com “the power of small steps”
See Resource Books for more learning
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