Photo by Jan Kahánek
We do so much writing in our professional lives that whenever I hear the word “journaling” my mind kind of freezes over. We write reports, newsletters, strategic plans, opinions, instructions, curriculum documents, more reports – we’re constantly writing.
Turns out though that “journaling” is one of those things that can really help us with our well-being at work. Studies show that journaling can be a powerful tool for enhancing well-being by promoting emotional expression, self-reflection, stress reduction, problem-solving, goal setting, and gratitude.
It has a versatility and adaptability about it that means you can almost do it anywhere and at any time.
I reckon we should make time to journal our thoughts at school – during our professional day.
Tapping away on your keyboard, or writing longhand into a book, no-one needs to know. Journaling has the advantage of making you appear to be “busy” to anyone who might poke their head through the door and make some sort of judgement about how you’re using your time!
Making time, just for you, to get your thoughts, concerns, wonders and ideas down daily sounds easy. You just need to make that time, and then get on to it.
So what could you write about? The great thing about journaling is that you don’t need to follow the same theme every day. Just getting your thoughts down onto paper is immensely beneficial to your well-being.
In fact I’m getting benefit from just writing about journaling – it’s helping me clarify my own thinking as my fingers bounce across the keyboard finding ways to turn words into ideas.
So, as I said, what could you write about? Well, how about these ideas for a start:
- Gratitude Journaling: Keeping a gratitude journal, where you regularly write about things that you are thankful for. This has been linked to increased happiness, reduced depression, and improved overall life satisfaction.
- Structured Thinking: Writing down your problems and finding potential solutions can help you greatly in building up problem-solving skills. By doing this it allows you to organise your thoughts logically and approach your professional challenges more systematically.
- Cathartic Release: How about just writing as a process to release pent-up emotions and stress. Write down exactly what you’re feeling – no-one else will ever read this. Go-to-town with how you’re feeling. This act of releasing stress can lower physiological stress markers like cortisol levels .
- Cognitive Restructuring: Write about the challenging situations that you find yourself in. By doing this you can help yourself reframe negative thoughts and develop a more positive outlook, which in turn contributes to better mental health and resilience .
- Positive Emotion Amplification: How about focusing on some of the positive experiences and accomplishments that you’ve been through recently. Amplify these positive emotions and it’ll help you to foster a more optimistic outlook on what you’re going through.
As I said, there doesn’t need to be any rhyme or reason to your writing in terms of what you write about, it’s all up to you. But studies do show that regular journaling will make you feel better and will promote resilience, so why wouldn’t you find time in your “busy” day at work to put pen to paper?
All you need to do is start. Close the door of your office, set your timer for twenty minutes and write. Go on, do it! You won’t regret it.
Steve