[00:00:00] stuck in the swirl. That was me. The other day, I'd allowed the list of tasks I wanted to accomplish to push me into overwhelm. And my Orry mood basically brought me to a standstill. I was feeling unmotivated. Tired anxious. Now, luckily I needed to prepare for the next group call with my talent trust members.
[00:02:04] It's funny how sometimes when you have to serve and there's a deadline, it can really galvanize you. So anyways, I had to will my way into getting started, even though I didn't feel like it. And it just so happens that our theme for this month and the group is reflective learning. So as one does, I sat down to create some key reflection questions that I could offer the group and all of a sudden it hit me.
[00:02:27] These are great questions. I need to reflect on my own damn reflection questions. So I moved over to my journal and I spent a whole five minutes answering the questions I'd planned to pose to the group when digging into. You know, the challenges that they may be encountering. So there were questions, like, what's the story I'm telling myself right now.
[00:02:46] And what's actually true. What do I want, what do I need to do next? And after I'd written for a little bit, Bingo, instant clarity. Now everyone agrees that when you're an overwhelm, you can't see, clearly you get stuck easily. You become unproductive. You know, I call it being in the mind, swirl or the dreaded vortex.
[00:03:10] You think to yourself stuff like, oh, if only I, I had time to just sit down and think, and then you tell yourself I don't have time for that. So you stay in motion in the swirl flail. Yet the way out of that swirl is to slow down, to breathe, to reflect then to think. So in the earlier call we had this month or when we began the discussion about reflective learning, One talent trust member. She shared this month that she's realized that when she's consistently reflective her capacity expands, she is actually more productive. Even though she takes a few minutes every day to evaluate her day, instead of just working on her projects every possible second, you know, I can so relate to quote this member.
[00:03:56] She said, you know, I've realized that reflection is the glue that makes learning. And when she stated this realization, the entire group, including me, noded in recognition and another member added reflection is an accelerant for productivity. Yep. Now I mentioned a moment ago that the way out of the swirl is to slow down, to breathe, to reflect than to.
[00:04:24] and for me, I wanna share that writing is the path to this calm and intentional state. I call my journal, my buddy. I know you're gonna think I'm strange, but you know, it really is my self coaching and reflection magnet. It's my trusted companion, my overwhelm overcomer, my clarity catalyst, and my mind map contain.
[00:04:44] it's a notebook with a beautiful cover. It's the perfect size. And it's not so huge that it doesn't sit, sit my purse nicely. It's not so tiny that I get a cramp in my hand from trying to write in it. You know, the last one, it took me 18 months to use up every last page. Now, sometimes I write every day, other times it might be once a week for a little bit, depending on what's going on in my.
[00:05:06] My journal has seen me through times of both incredible growth and momentum. And through times of deep SN stuckness and confusion and grief. It sounds silly, but I, you know, I think of it as my Journal's really been there for me, you know, it's always helping me combat my mouthy inner critic, which we all suffer from.
[00:05:26] You know, it's at my side when I can't figure out where to start, because I've been brimming with so many ideas and. Potential distractions. It's a safe space to break down the pros and cons of various decisions and to mind map new business and program ideas to dream big. Now, it always strikes me funny that most of my coaching clients actually resist using a journal at first, you know, they'll tell me, ah, it's okay.
[00:05:51] I have it all in my head or I love post-it notes or I'll just type it into one note. My favorite one is. You see, journaling just doesn't work for me. Research shows though that writing your thoughts down by hand is a powerful way to set goals, process ideas, internalize learning, create momentum and stay accountable to yourself.
[00:06:17] Research or not. I know from experience working with people that when they do try it and build a journal habit over time, it makes a meaningful difference in both their accomplishments and in their stress. For most of my life, I only journaled when I was in distress or having a rough time. For example, you know, when I went through a divorce many years ago and, and the time I lost my mom for the past five, six years though, I've used it for way more than that.
[00:06:44] Over that time. It's wild. Really? When I think about it, I've I left a job that no longer gave me energy. I went back to school. I built green apple consulting and a property management company with my husband. I developed broad new networks and friendships and I improved my health. The key to changing my attitude towards journaling was, you know, to drop my old assumptions of what journaling was and could be it, it doesn't have to be a dear diary type of thing.
[00:07:13] I never start with dear diary. You. Deep thoughts, only pages of emotional venting. It can be filled with literally anything you want. So for example, I was leafing through mine just to get ideas for this bullet list here. So it could be a letter to yourself, could be a letter to someone else. could be a mind map, ProCon decision making tables vacation idea.
[00:07:35] Inspirational quotes that you noticed and, you know, wanted to remember self coaching questions, you know, why am I so grumpy today? And or what am I looking forward to or feeling grateful for? Could be your horoscope for the day or notes from an inspirational webinar you watched. Sometimes I'll, I'll jot down music, playlist ideas.
[00:07:56] It's also where I start to draft up my personal quarterly goals and my business plan could be courses. You wanna take exercise logs. It could even be agenda topics to discuss with your coach or mentor. For instance, I do a weekly review in my journal. Sometimes it's biweekly, but you, you know, never longer than that, but it, tho those reflections are based on my daily reflection, which takes me about 30 seconds on my best results and biggest challenges.
[00:08:21] I just write those at the bottom of my daily agenda at the end of the. You know, I use those, those weekly reviews to then inform my agenda for, for my biweekly conversations with my coach in terms of what do I, what do I want to accomplish? What I wanna focus on. So, you know, all of that list of stuff that you could be writing about, what do all of these diverse things have in common?
[00:08:43] Well, they're reflective. There's really no. Or wrong way to journal. And if you don't try it, you're missing out on the benefits of this very cheap and simple, but incredibly effective life tool. So the next time you are overwhelmed and you're telling yourself, I don't have time to step back and reflect, recognize that lie and realize that stepping back to reflect is the only thing you need to make time for right now.
[00:09:10] And that writing your reflections down is the quickest way to clarity and from there to results. So, this has been me reflecting on reflection and how important it is in my life and in the lives of my clients. I hope it's given you some pause and perhaps some motivation to become more reflective in your day to day, too.
[00:09:30] Thanks so much for listening.
