Here is a portion of a journal entry I wrote earlier this month:
"This is the month for tilling the garden and sowing the seeds - what do I want to grow in my life this year? What weeds do I need to pull out of my garden of life? What rocks do I need to remove from my soil? What fertilizer do I need to add to my life to help me better move toward my goals?"
That journal entry was focused on, well, FOCUS - do I focus on the negative things at work or do I focus on the promise of the future? Do I lament about the things I have not done on my to-do list or do I focus on the positives in my life and endeavor to do better just for today?
Here is more from that entry:
"Yesterday is past, tomorrow may never come, so focus just on today. The past is done - focus on the present. Plan for the future, yes, but focus on the present - what can I do today to move toward my goals, my desired outcomes?"
So, what do you want to see more of in your life this year? Is your focus such that you are working toward that vision, or are you focusing on things that are moving you away from attaining that vision? What can you do right here, right now to move toward that vision you have for your life?
Pretty powerful stuff!
And yes, I journal nearly every day, first thing in the morning mostly. It helps to clear the flotsam and jetsam and set the tone for the day. It also helps me focus on the vision I have for my life and sort through the life plants, so I can pull the weeds from life, which helps the plants I want in my life to thrive.
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, recommends three pages of long-hand journaling first thing in the morning to clear out the negativity and flotsam and jetsam so you can focus on what needs to be focused on.
CALL TO ACTION: Journal; lay out your vision; till the field of your life for the upcoming year.
CHECK-IN: How are you doing with the other calls to action thus far? Are you moving out on your goals for the year? If not, perhaps the information in today's post will help you to refocus your energy to do so.
NEXT TIME: Next post will discuss seven questions to help you focus on living your best life now, and possibly how to use manifestation boards to keep that focus firmly in front of you.
Until next time, Namaste!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave a comment on this post or contact me at the email address below:
Beth Henderson, MaXIMIzer
maximize.beth@gmail.com
Showing posts with label journaling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journaling. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Sunday, September 14, 2014
MaXIMIze - Overall Well-Being - Journaling
One of the ways we can enhance our overall well-being is to ensure things flow through and around us, that there is nothing blocking the flow that is helping us live our best lives now.
Journaling first thing in the morning, whenever your morning may be, is one way to clear the flotsam and jetsam that can interfere with your flow of abundance, of creativity, of drive.
Whether you just free write three pages, as recommended by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way, or focus on one issue and write through it, or do a combination of both or choose your own method of journaling, writing things down helps us to center and focus on what is truly important at that moment in time in our lives.
It can also help us look at things from various angles, work through anger and pain, focus on the positive things in life (like the challenge I gave you in last week's post), or just focus our daily lens to see the things that are really important to get done or work on that particular day.
I journal nearly ever day, long hand, in pen, in a, well, journal - a bound book with lined pages that I usually get at Ross for about $4. On weekdays, it is more of clearing the flotsam and jetsam, acknowledging issues, worries and distractions, and focusing on the day ahead. When I make the time to journal on the weekends, I tend to focus on the bigger, more long-range picture of my life, where I want to go, what I want to do, what is helping me get there, what is hindering me, and how I can deal with the roadblocks to living my best life now.
However you wish to pursue journaling, I strongly encourage you to do it for at least 30 days. The insights you gain will be worth the time spent, and will help you to better live your best life right here, right now.
Other topics still to come this month are Harmony & Sync, and Balance.
Until next week, Namaste!
Journaling first thing in the morning, whenever your morning may be, is one way to clear the flotsam and jetsam that can interfere with your flow of abundance, of creativity, of drive.
Whether you just free write three pages, as recommended by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way, or focus on one issue and write through it, or do a combination of both or choose your own method of journaling, writing things down helps us to center and focus on what is truly important at that moment in time in our lives.
It can also help us look at things from various angles, work through anger and pain, focus on the positive things in life (like the challenge I gave you in last week's post), or just focus our daily lens to see the things that are really important to get done or work on that particular day.
I journal nearly ever day, long hand, in pen, in a, well, journal - a bound book with lined pages that I usually get at Ross for about $4. On weekdays, it is more of clearing the flotsam and jetsam, acknowledging issues, worries and distractions, and focusing on the day ahead. When I make the time to journal on the weekends, I tend to focus on the bigger, more long-range picture of my life, where I want to go, what I want to do, what is helping me get there, what is hindering me, and how I can deal with the roadblocks to living my best life now.
However you wish to pursue journaling, I strongly encourage you to do it for at least 30 days. The insights you gain will be worth the time spent, and will help you to better live your best life right here, right now.
Other topics still to come this month are Harmony & Sync, and Balance.
Until next week, Namaste!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
MaXIMIze - Mid-Year Review/Recap
Okay, so I was a week off last week. My inner calendar was telling me this was the first weekend of July, not the last weekend of June.
Since we are halfway through the year, this is a good time to take stock of where we are and how far we have come (or not) since the year turned.
At the beginning of the year, we started with a bunch of questions to gauge where you are now, what is important to you, what your satisfaction levels were in the areas of overall well being, physical health, spiritual health, finances, career, and relationships and how your personal prose is affecting your satisfaction level.
We worked through the Circle of Perception exercise and discussed values, goal setting and the 5 Whys and manifestation boards.
We talked about identifying roadblocks and assessing the true risks to achieving your goals.
We discussed moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence, giving up bad habits, and getting back up after following off the wagon.
We worked on developing our follow through, moving through fear, and spring cleaning.
Finally, we discussed growing our best lives before starting the specific areas of finances (April posts), physical health (May posts), and spiritual health (June posts).
During the last six months, I've also thrown out several challenges for us to work on, starting with manifestation boards and including the following:
Sharing positive energy and eliminating negative energy
Tracking your expenses
Analyzing what we truly need
Tracking your input (diet) and output (exercise)
Fine-tuning your input (diet)
Believing you are enough, you have enough, you do enough (meditation)
Three pages a day (journaling)
Now I challenge all of us to review the material and the challenges we've accepted (or ignored), and see where we are right here, right now.
Has anything improved in our lives?
Have we truly committed to MaXIMIzing ourselves, MaXIMIzing our lives, and living our best life now?
If you've fallen off the wagon, remember you can always get up, dust yourself off, and get back on the wagon that will take you down the path of your best life!
For additional inspiration and support you can keep at your fingertips, I offer my book, Take Your Life in Your Arms and Kiss It!, available here.
Next week, we will tackle the topic of career, starting with is this just a J.O.B. or is this truly W.O.R.K.
Until then, Namaste!
Since we are halfway through the year, this is a good time to take stock of where we are and how far we have come (or not) since the year turned.
At the beginning of the year, we started with a bunch of questions to gauge where you are now, what is important to you, what your satisfaction levels were in the areas of overall well being, physical health, spiritual health, finances, career, and relationships and how your personal prose is affecting your satisfaction level.
We worked through the Circle of Perception exercise and discussed values, goal setting and the 5 Whys and manifestation boards.
We talked about identifying roadblocks and assessing the true risks to achieving your goals.
We discussed moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence, giving up bad habits, and getting back up after following off the wagon.
We worked on developing our follow through, moving through fear, and spring cleaning.
Finally, we discussed growing our best lives before starting the specific areas of finances (April posts), physical health (May posts), and spiritual health (June posts).
During the last six months, I've also thrown out several challenges for us to work on, starting with manifestation boards and including the following:
Sharing positive energy and eliminating negative energy
Tracking your expenses
Analyzing what we truly need
Tracking your input (diet) and output (exercise)
Fine-tuning your input (diet)
Believing you are enough, you have enough, you do enough (meditation)
Three pages a day (journaling)
Now I challenge all of us to review the material and the challenges we've accepted (or ignored), and see where we are right here, right now.
Has anything improved in our lives?
Have we truly committed to MaXIMIzing ourselves, MaXIMIzing our lives, and living our best life now?
If you've fallen off the wagon, remember you can always get up, dust yourself off, and get back on the wagon that will take you down the path of your best life!
For additional inspiration and support you can keep at your fingertips, I offer my book, Take Your Life in Your Arms and Kiss It!, available here.
Next week, we will tackle the topic of career, starting with is this just a J.O.B. or is this truly W.O.R.K.
Until then, Namaste!
Sunday, June 15, 2014
MaXIMIze - Journaling: Clear Your Mind, Focus Your Energy
In her book, The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron recommends writing three pages in your journal first thing in the morning to clear blockages to working your craft. No editing, no censoring, just writing to clear the flotsam and jetsam from your mind.
I too recommend journaling as a way to clear your mind and focus your energy for the day. By putting things down on paper, you unblock the path so your energy can freely do the work it is meant to do that day.
Journaling can also help us answer our innermost questions by opening the pathway for that small, still voice inside to communicate more easily with us by quieting our minds and focusing our energy.
Sometimes the mere act of writing something down brings out into the light that which has not truly been seen or acknowledged before. And we all know the first step to moving past a problem or a roadblock is to acknowledge it exists. Once we can see the problem or the roadblock and define it, we can work toward solving it or moving past it.
Journaling is a way our innermost Self - that small, still voice within each of us - can help us sort out our problems and work past our roadblocks.
My challenge to you this week is to write at least one - preferably three - pages a day, by hand - either in a journal or a notebook or even just a pad of paper. Do this without editing or censoring yourself. Just let the words flow - even if the words are, "I don't know what to write." Once your inner voice knows it has a consistent way to communicate, the words will come.
Next week we will discuss recharging your batteries.
And in remembrance of a voice from my childhood who left the world this day - "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars." RIP Casey Kasem
Until next week, namaste!
I too recommend journaling as a way to clear your mind and focus your energy for the day. By putting things down on paper, you unblock the path so your energy can freely do the work it is meant to do that day.
Journaling can also help us answer our innermost questions by opening the pathway for that small, still voice inside to communicate more easily with us by quieting our minds and focusing our energy.
Sometimes the mere act of writing something down brings out into the light that which has not truly been seen or acknowledged before. And we all know the first step to moving past a problem or a roadblock is to acknowledge it exists. Once we can see the problem or the roadblock and define it, we can work toward solving it or moving past it.
Journaling is a way our innermost Self - that small, still voice within each of us - can help us sort out our problems and work past our roadblocks.
My challenge to you this week is to write at least one - preferably three - pages a day, by hand - either in a journal or a notebook or even just a pad of paper. Do this without editing or censoring yourself. Just let the words flow - even if the words are, "I don't know what to write." Once your inner voice knows it has a consistent way to communicate, the words will come.
Next week we will discuss recharging your batteries.
And in remembrance of a voice from my childhood who left the world this day - "Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars." RIP Casey Kasem
Until next week, namaste!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
MaXIMIze - Physical Health
This month's focus is on Physical Health, and as I was brainstorming ideas to write on this month, I realized this is a huge topic that covers more than just diet and exercise. We'll touch on things from, yes, diet and exercise to dealing with stress to meditation to journaling to energy flow. Our physical health is the foundation for our being in so many ways, and it is also a barometer, a gauge if you will, of what is going on in the other areas of our lives.
Somewhere along the line I picked up this list of seven things successful people do on a daily basis.
1. Get enough sleep
2. Eat breakfast
3. Exercise
4. Floss
5. Read
6. Save money
7. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
Did you notice that five of the seven items on the list are directly related to physical health? I could write a post on each of those alone - that's how important our physical health, our physical well-being, is.
This is definitely one area where we need to practice extreme self-care, because no one else will do it for us. Others may encourage us to take better care of ourselves, but it is truly up to us to choose to follow that encouragement and commit to taking the best care of ourselves as possible.
To do that, we must stop thinking of paying attention to what we put into our bodies - diet - and how we use our bodies - exercise, or the lack thereof - as four-letter words, bad, or even truly work. Giving ourselves the right kind of nutrition is like putting the best gas and oil in our cars, and getting enough exercise is like getting our cars tuned up on a regular basis. If we can care for our cars - our things - this well, we should give at least that much care and attention to ourselves, right?
So, my first challenge to you this month is to keep track of what you eat and drink, and what kind of physical activity you engage in. Awareness is key in knowing what you are doing right now and discovering what needs to be adjusted.
This may well be a month where bonus posts come up during the week, since there is so much to cover on this topic! So until the next post, namaste!
Somewhere along the line I picked up this list of seven things successful people do on a daily basis.
1. Get enough sleep
2. Eat breakfast
3. Exercise
4. Floss
5. Read
6. Save money
7. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
Did you notice that five of the seven items on the list are directly related to physical health? I could write a post on each of those alone - that's how important our physical health, our physical well-being, is.
This is definitely one area where we need to practice extreme self-care, because no one else will do it for us. Others may encourage us to take better care of ourselves, but it is truly up to us to choose to follow that encouragement and commit to taking the best care of ourselves as possible.
To do that, we must stop thinking of paying attention to what we put into our bodies - diet - and how we use our bodies - exercise, or the lack thereof - as four-letter words, bad, or even truly work. Giving ourselves the right kind of nutrition is like putting the best gas and oil in our cars, and getting enough exercise is like getting our cars tuned up on a regular basis. If we can care for our cars - our things - this well, we should give at least that much care and attention to ourselves, right?
So, my first challenge to you this month is to keep track of what you eat and drink, and what kind of physical activity you engage in. Awareness is key in knowing what you are doing right now and discovering what needs to be adjusted.
This may well be a month where bonus posts come up during the week, since there is so much to cover on this topic! So until the next post, namaste!
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