Reflective journaling is a great way of moving forward on some of those New Year resolutions that never quite happened.  It is a deceptively simple practice taking only ten minutes a day and it really does produce results.

Willpower is the most common way of trying to make changes in life.  Usually it doesn’t work, because most of our thinking and behaviour is so strongly habitual.  Reflective journaling is a more gentle and effective way of learning how to produce more of the results you want in life, with less stress and hassle.  It works by changing the habits slowly and surely, one small bit at a time.  Try it for a month and you will be surprised at the difference it makes.

Too busy?  Then this practice will enable you to find ways of taking the pressure out of life and freeing up more time.  All it involves is spending ten minutes every day reflecting on whatever issues or goals are most important to you and writing about it in a small notebook.  Research shows that the act of writing it down has a quite different effect to just thinking about it in your head.

Start by reflecting on whatever goals or problems you are most motivated to change in your life.  Let your thoughts flow and write down whatever seems most significant to you.

On the second day, pick one or more of these and start thinking about what you could do differently.  Go for small changes.  If you can imagine having a different response in any given situation, you are half way to achieving it. Imagine yourself responding differently.  If that seems too difficult, ask yourself who you know that would know how to respond differently in that situation.  Notice how they would handle it. Write it down. Imagine yourself having that new response the next time you are in that situation.

On the third day notice what changes did, or did not show up.  Write it down.  If you succeeded, congratulate yourself and plan a small treat.  If you didn’t, try not to judge yourself, just notice what happened.  Allow yourself to become curious about what would make a difference.  It can typically take ten or twenty repeats to shift a habitual response.  Be unattached to immediate results.  Keep reflecting and writing.

Repeat this process every day.  As you continue with your daily journaling, allow the content, the goals and problems, to keep changing as you achieve small successes.  Explore different approaches to difficult issues or goals.  You are deciding on a daily basis what your priorities are.  Stay with the difficult bits; these are where you are closest to making shifts.

How does this all work?  Put simply, if you want different results in life, these come from doing some things differently.  What you do is changed by thinking different thoughts, imagining different behaviours, changing self-limiting beliefs, and becoming more aware of how your emotions influence you.

Your practice of daily reflective journaling will increase your awareness of how all these things work together.  The more aware you are of how you do what you do, the easier it becomes to make different choices.

At the end of the month go back and look at the first few pages to notice just how much progress you have made.  Most people are pleasantly surprised.  Good luck and happy journaling.

With thanks to Joel Montes for use of his image.