RULES!!!!

Rules! Have you noticed there are always rules for everything? Rules to drive a car, get on a plane, enter a contest.

Sometimes it seems like life is a series of unending rules.

And that gets annoying- or at least, I’ve found it so.

In the past when I lead journal writing course I would tell people, there are no rules. Well, you would have thought I’d told them to strip naked and dance down the street.

What do you mean, there are no rules?

I quickly realized that some people just couldn’t write in a journal if there were no rules. So, I made some.

1. Always write the full date including the year. There are a lot of March 1’s in our lives.
2. Realize that you can, write, print, paint, swear, or do whatever you like. It’s your journal, it’s your choice.
3. This is the most important rule: you can burn it if you want to. This rule also confuses people, until I point out that they are writing for themselves and sometimes they just don’t want some of it hanging around. In my case, I got rid of the journals that were written during a painful break-up.

So why as a coach am I writing about journal writing? What does this have to do with making decision?

Journalling is an invaluable tool for gaining clarity and helping us make decisions.

For example, you are a manger and have an employee who  is just not cutting it. If you have been having difficulty with the employee it may seem as if everything they are doing is annoying and wrong.

A good way to sort out the behaviours is to keep track of what is going on. Are they constantly tardy? Do they make up for it by staying late? Do they abuse sick leave? Do they cause friction with their co-workers?

After a week or so of tracking you get a better perspective of what is going on. From there you can make decisions about termination, moving them to another department providing a letter of expectation etc. If you work in a unionized environment, you need to keep these kinds of notes. In essence a work journal.

When you come to a crossroads in your life, it is much easier to make a good decision if you can look back and see how you got to this place.

For example, you are thinking about moving, either from the home you are in or from an interest in living in another community. By rereading your journal you might discover a desire to live in a smaller town or larger city. Maybe you’ve written about the things you want that are not available.

Perhaps you want better access to the ocean, a community of artists or a place you could have a pet. Those are the desires that surface in our journals and help us make decisions.

Keeping a journal is a great way to record your history and discover your dreams.

That’s the knowledge you need to make good decisions for your future.

And as always, if you are having problems with decisions, give me a call, I can help you.