Anthony Robbins says "A life worth living, is a life worth recording."
Which is very true – journaling is a great way to record your life achievements and to keep track of how you are developing and growing as a person.
Personally, I keep a journal to track how I am improving my life and growing my business. I joke with myself that one day I can give it to my grandchildren so they can see what crazy old grandpa got up to!
However, keeping a journal is also a good way of dealing with stressful situations in your life.
Writing down your problems is an excellent way to start to deal with them. Napoleon Hill estimated that as much as 92% of your worries were not real and not within your power to change.
Just the simple act of writing down what is stressing you will help you deal with them. When they are written down this stresses become almost less real – they are out of your head and on paper, which makes them more manageable for you.
You can then start to sort out which ones are valid and which ones are not. Some of the things you are getting stressed about may only actually be in your head and may not even be real situations!
Last year I had to do a big talk in front of a very influential group of people that could result in a lot of business for me. I was busy focusing on all the bad things and how stressful it was, and the event had even happened. Once I got to the day I was full of confidence and gave a great talk – but for weeks before hand I had been stressing out about something that hadn't even happened!
Once you have written down the stressful situations you can also, maybe on a different piece of paper, dialogue with yourself.
This means that you have a conversation with yourself on paper. It's not as crazy as you might initially think it sounds. This allows you to work out situations outside of your head and without hurting anyone. It's usually easier to do it on paper rather than in your head as you can disassociate from it. That means that you can avoid getting as caught up in the emotions of the situation.
When you resolve the situations that were stressing you can write down the steps that you took in order to reduce the stress.
This gives you the benefit of being able to return to your journal and review previous situations that had caused you stress and use the knowledge and wisdom from those on the current situations that are stressing you.
Journaling can not only be used to help you reduce your stress, but to keep a record of your life. There are many more benefits to journaling than those you have read about here. Keep a journal and use it to make your life even better.
