Journal Writing as a Tool for Change

As a tool for overcoming inner obstacles, I have found that journal keeping is an invaluable resource. I have used it in various strivings in the areas of smoking cessation, overcoming writer’s block, mastering call reluctance and, most recently, managing weight loss.nnAs an inveterate journal keeper for many years, I have always found that the writing down of thoughts, concerns, interests, observations, and feelings are a great aid in staying focused on whatever it was I was trying to accomplish. nnA journal also helps you identify motives for what you are doing, understandings of where those motives come from, benefits and costs of change, and it helps you identify what kind of decisions have to be made in order to move forward.nnA journal will enable you to generate rationalizations to restore equilibrium caused by lack of correspondence between aspirations and results. Whether you are trying to overcome procrastination, reduce social anxiety in public speaking or in writer’s block, it is helpful to have a place to work out your scripts….your understandings, worries, and fears.nnChange is never linear. There are stops and starts, periods of progression and regression and hence it is inevitable that you find yourself in conflict between your hoped for goal and your actual achievement. Therefore the need arises to take stock, revise strategies, recommit, and persist with repeated attempts.nnIn all of this, a place to dialogue with yourself about what you are undergoing, a record of progress, and a noting down of what works, and what doesn’t is very helpful.nnAnd furthermore, activities which lessen fear and anxiety, in this case, the fear of failure and disapproval in weight loss, for example, are reinforced because tension is reduced by keeping a journal. nnThis is the real value of journalizing. It gives you an additional means for self awareness and self rectification, for analyzing your weaknesses, and then designing and implementing your own program for improvement or renewed effort. The thought and planning process itself serve to increase your chances of success; and each successful step serves to give you more confidence that eventually you will succeed.nnMy journal is where I uncovered my main motive for weight loss, namely, the need for more worthiness and self respect; this was important given my background of always thinking I wasn’t good enough. The journal is also where I raised questions the answers to which permitted me to identify what would help with weight loss. I’m thinking here of such factors as role models, record keeping, reward rituals and accountability partners.nnThe self analysis made possible by keeping a journal allowed me to generate my own program, my own motivation, and permitted me to take advantage and use a catalyst that came along just when I was in need of a stimulus to push me forward. So many procrastinate when it comes to weight loss which is why some sort of catalyst can be a key change agent.nn Because it worked for me, I think it can work for anyone who will take the trouble to record their thoughts and observations so that they can thereby steer themselves by their ideas and not just be in a reactive mode, following the urgings of outside authorities in the culture or in your social network. Outside blandishments are not nearly as effective as internal resolves firmly based.