Stop Claim Luck! Page 3

  If you are feeling sad, you might write about what you are feeling at that very moment.

  You can’t just write about your reactions to whatever is happening around you. You need to figure out a system.

  It is hard to make writing in a journal a priority. It will take dedication and time to turn an action into a habit. When you have accomplished this, writing in a journal will be very easy.

  Here is a guide to help you update your journal daily. This might seem like just a small part of your day, but this will become a beneficial part.

  Benefits of Keeping a Journal

  Keeping a journal is beneficial to your health, especially your emotional health.

  It can relax you and help you understand your thought process. In this day and age, our minds go a mile a minute specifically if we are under a lot of stress. Put these emotions and thoughts in your journal so you can manage them better.

  This journal will become a permanent record of the thoughts in your life. It can also record events in your life, too.

  When keeping a journal, you will be able to look back on events that happened, and it will remind you about how you felt at a particular time. You might learn from these past experiences. It will be great to have a record of what has happened to you. As we age, our minds don’t retain information like it used to. Memories will be less vivid and clear as they fade away into the past. Keeping a journal of our lives will enable us to remember them better.

  When you are having a difficult time, keeping a journal is a good way to reduce stress. Studies have shown that writing about the hard times in our lives resulted in better psychological and physical health. If you can keep a journal that focuses on traumatic events, it will let you see these events with more clarity.

  Set a Time Each Day

  The main point in starting a journal isn’t writing in the journal, it is making time to do it. You need to think of it as the most important part of your day.

  Don’t start making excuses.

  Begin keeping your journal the right way by putting it into your daily schedule. The time doesn’t matter; just make it convenient for you.

  If you see your mind is more active during the morning hours, get up a few minutes earlier than everyone else and write down your thoughts. This is a good time to write about your dreams if you can remember them. If you would rather write about your day after it has happened, then schedule a time to do it before you settle down for the night. If it helps you relax, you might find it helps you sleep.

  You will get more benefits out of writing in your journal if you can do it each day. Have your smartphone remind you to write in your journal. That way, it can remind you that it is now time to write. Life will get in the way from time to time, and you might not be able to write in it on that day. That isn’t a problem. Just try to get it the next day. If you skip more than two days, it will be easy to stop writing altogether. Then, it will be harder to start back.

  Use the Correct Tools

  Could there be a right and wrong way to begin a journal?

  There is a normal way of keeping a journal by writing it down on paper with either a pencil or pen. A more modern approach is typing it into a computer. You have to choose which method is best for you to get rid of the clutter in your mind.

  There isn’t a right answer. Either way is fine.

  The way you choose to keep your journal is up to you. The main point is that you choose a way for you to keep a journal that you will do every day. Studies show that doing a blog will give the same physical and mental benefits that keeping a traditional journal will.

  Always try to do a handwritten journal first. Try it for several weeks. A handwritten journal will be more authentic since you can’t edit it by clicking a few buttons.

  Studies have shown that handwriting stimulates the reticular activating system in the brain. This means that what you think is brought into the front of your mind and thus help you focus on it.

  Make the Correct Environment

  Keeping a journal is all about your thoughts and you. The easiest way for you to record your thoughts is to get rid of distractions.

  There are good reasons behind why so many writers isolate themselves when writing their books. You need to have solitude to focus on what you are writing.

  This isn’t telling you to go find a cabin in the woods to write. You just need a quiet room that is away from others. Making sure you are away from technology is important while writing in your journal.

  Here are some tips to help you get your room set up:

  Get up before anyone else

  Find a quiet spot where the family don’t frequent

  Put away your cell phone

  Turn off your computer

  Turn off the television

  The main idea is to be sure you aren’t going to get distracted. This makes keeping a journal all about your writing and you.

  Keep Your Privacy

  It is important to keep your journal private. It doesn’t matter whether or not you care if someone reads it. If you don’t think your thoughts are really private, then you will not be totally honest.

  You might either subconsciously or consciously stay away from writing about specific topics because you are afraid of what someone else might think. This might hold you back from writing about things you are really passionate about.

  When you begin a journal, you have no way of knowing if it is going to be read by someone else. You could take some steps to protect it if at all possible.

  The best way is to keep the journal with you all the time. This is good since you will be able to write down if something happens to you. You might also have a moment of inspiration.

  Don’t let anybody look at even the cover of your journal. Put it away in your bag. Even if you trust the person, keep it away from them. Keep it out of sight. Remember the old saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Date Every Entry

  It is important to date all your journal entries so you can look back at a certain date and know what happened. Remember to put the date of every moment you wrote down in your journal.

  A journal is your innermost thoughts, and you are going to want to go back later and look at them. Dating every entry will help you learn about your thought process and how it relates to events in your life.

  You will also see how you have gotten better with time.

  Mental clarity will fade with age. If your entries aren’t dated, you won’t know when you wrote a certain entry.

  Taking it a step further if you forget and leave your journal out where others can see it. If you didn’t date anything, they aren’t going to know when things happened.

  One more reason to date your entries is it only takes a few seconds. You are just writing a series of number, no big deal.

  If you like scrapbooking, you could include a receipt from a special purchase with your journal entry to indicate the date.

  What to Write About?

  You can choose to do one of three different journals, everyone has a specific purpose:

  Freedom Journal: This is a goal-oriented journal. It helps you achieve one goal in just 100 days. In this journal, you will record any progress as you work to this goal and the thoughts you have while working toward it. This is a good journal when you have a certain thing you want to do.

  Moleskin Journal: This type of journal is what you want it to be. You write whatever comes to mind. You could make bullet lists for your tasks for the day. You could write morning pages. This is when you write three pages without stopping about whatever comes to mind. This is a versatile journal and great to help you sort out your thoughts.

  Five-Minute Journal: This journal just focuses on gratitude. You write about everything good that happened to you today, but you do it in just five minutes. This task can lead to increased happiness and a positive mindset.

  Quick Tip: If you can’t think about what to write, begin the entry with a favorite quote or lyric. This is great if you get a son
g stuck in your head. Look at these lines and use them as inspiration for a journal entry.

  Be Honest

  This is your personal, private journal. You have to be honest when keeping a daily journal.

  This is a reflection of your emotions and thoughts. Never limit what you write about. You must be honest and open about what you are feeling. If you aren’t honest with yourself, you will not be honest with anybody.

  Write about what you are really feeling and not about how you think you should feel.

  If you don’t know what to write, just put down the first thing that pops into your mind. Whatever comes to mind first is usually what is important to you at that very moment.

  If there is something that has been bothering you, write it in your journal and explore it from different angles.

  If you write about problems, you can usually see it with fresh eyes. You might see it from another person’s point of view. Writing can help you see that it really wasn’t a big deal.

  Keep it Simple

  Many people have problems when they start keeping a journal. They spend way too much time figuring out what to write or how to write it perfectly.

  You might be trying to say things the right way to simply show your thoughts but want to convey them elegantly. Remember, keeping a journal is in no way professional writing.

  If you try to write perfectly formed thoughts, you won’t get as much down as you would have if you had just written the thoughts as they came to you. It will take you longer to write your thoughts. Writing in your journal will soon become a chore and won’t be fun anymore. What’s worse is you will not be satisfied with what you just wrote down.

  You can’t attain perfection. If you chase it, it will become futile. Let your thoughts go as you write. Remember, you aren’t writing a novel or a paper for college. Depth and quality of writing aren’t important when keeping a journal.

  Quick Tip: Try to keep your thoughts short as you write. Once they have been written down, you can expand on them or write another one. This allows you to put more thought into every entry.

  Don’t Censor Yourself

  Do you censor the thoughts in your head? Absolutely not!

  Why in the world would you ever censor your journal? This is the main reason why you shouldn’t share your journal with others. If you know you are the only one to see your journal, you will feel more freedom to write what you want without fear of judgment from anyone.

  Don’t even worry about spelling or grammar. It doesn’t matter how bad they are. If you understand what you wrote, that’s all that matters.

  The best benefit of a journal you hand write in is when you make a mistake; you won’t have that red line show up under your word.

  Hand Write Entries

  If you have horrible handwriting, you might want to use a computer to get your thoughts out. This isn’t good for you though. When you are typing 60 to 70 words per minute, you aren’t really thinking about what you are writing. When you handwrite your entries, you are connecting with your thoughts better.

  Because it takes you longer when you write everything down by hand, you will have deeper thoughts and think about how you feel as you write down your thoughts. You are not just putting words on a page as fast as you can.

  Stick with the Habit

  Think about how easy life would be if you could begin anything and it stick overnight. Unfortunately, keeping a journal takes effort and time. It will take some time before it becomes a regular habit for you. It is a smart idea to try a multi-step process to make it a habit.

  Don’t try starting different habits all at one time. Everybody has limited amounts of willpower. If you try to divide it into too many new habits, you are going to reduce your success rate for them all. This is why people don’t keep their New Year’s resolutions.

  When you begin keeping a journal, this becomes your main priority. You must stick with it for a month at the very least. To get the best results, pair it with another habit. If you begin each day drinking coffee, try writing in your journal while drinking your coffee.

  If it sounds like too much to write for 20 minutes at a time, begin with just writing one paragraph each day. This will make it easier to turn writing in a journal a habit. With time, you will begin to write more and more.

  Conclusion

  It is hard creating new habits, but it will be well worth just five minutes of your day. You are going to learn more about yourself. You will reduce your stress levels. You will have a timeline of your life to look back at in years to come.

  Learn Something

  S ome people are naturally curious about the world and understand they still have a lot to learn. They worry about a day when they aren’t curious about something.

  In this increasingly computer-generated world, we are bound to experience information overload at one point or other. This will make even the strongest person to suffer from burnout. You have to limit your learning to specific areas that you want to know about.

  Learning something new has a lot of benefits that can bring you success and allows you to become a better you. You can gain so much by learning new things, it might just hone a skill you already know, or it might introduce you to something completely new in life.

  Benefits of Learning

  Fun

  The first benefit of learning something is simple. It’s fun. How many times do us adults get to just have fun? Most of our days are filled with the same old mundane things of getting up, fixing breakfast, going to work, taking lunch, finishing our work day, driving home during heavy traffic, fixing dinner, getting the kids ready for bed, getting yourself ready for bed, going to bed, and repeating everything the exact same way tomorrow.

  Anything worth learning can be fun, even business administration. If you are shown real examples and case studies that you can connect with, it makes learning more effective and faster.

  Pride and Accomplishment

  When learning something new, it should be something you want to learn, and you will enjoy as well. When you have finished learning everything you can about the subject, you should feel a great sense of pride and achievement. Learning should fit into your lifestyle but not take it over.

  Connecting to Others

  Once you have decided to learn something new, you might get to know many different people. This can help you learn more about life since everybody will hold various opinions about what is important to them. You can create great relationships with many new people and get a lot from it.

  Gives You Confidence

  When people form a connection through learning new things, they begin to share their preferences and opinions. Adults who learn new things will gain more self-efficacy and self-esteem if what they learn meets their needs. People will gain confidence when other people let them hear their opinions and suggestions. When people listen to others with patience and can engage them in conversations where they get something from it, you will soon emerge from your cocoon a brighter, more beautiful person.

  You Become a Connector

  When you learn new things, you will be talking to many new people, and your friend lists will expand. Various cultures and communities will allow you to get to know more about their people and them as well. You will be connecting on a new level that expands your knowledge.

  Importance of Learning

  Learning will improve you and gives you an agenda to help you breeze through pretty much anything in life. If you love learning, you will climb the ladder of success very quickly. You will encounter many different experiences, both bad and good, which are needed to sail the currents of life. You can’t deny that learning is important to our lives. Here are some ways that learning can help us.

  Improve Our Quality of Life

  Learning new things is a way to escape our humdrum everyday life and put you in a new one. No one wants to go through life with the title of Peter Pan. This just opens you up to ridicule. When you have reached this threshold, you will be able to network with ot
hers who have a lot of talent and knowledge. It might be something you enjoy for life.

  Brain Development

  The brain capacity of someone who likes to learn new things is greater than normal people. Your brain gets stimulated when you engage in social circles who like to pig out on knowledge. It might inspire others who are near you to learn something new as well. The myelin or white matter in the brain helps to improve your performance on several tasks. The more you learning and practice new things, the denser the myelin in your brain becomes. This will also help you learn better.

  Exposes You to New Ideas

  New and creative ideas will attract everybody and then some. People will start attaching themselves to you so they can learn things from you. The will try to get your opinion about topics, and soon, you are the center of attention. Learning will give you a curious mind and inquiring eyes. You will soon become popular among your inner circle of friends.

  Brings You Success

  Successful people are the same as you and me. The thing that makes them unique is the way they look at life. If you get hungry to learn new things, you will soon have success on your plate and all without working too hard. You will soon be able to deal with people better.

  Better Personality

  People grow by leaps and bounds when they begin to learn something new. It adds a new level to personal growth. It gives you confidence when you can give new information to your group of friends. It will also deepen your knowledge. Your shyness goes out the window, and you come out bolder and more confident.

  Slow Down Dementia

  When you learn new things, you will slow down the development of dementia. Dementia has been linked to the brain’s demyelination. When you actively learn something new, you aren’t giving your brain time to demyelinate. The brain’s neural pathways are eager for new impulses to travel on them.