How journaling and self-questioning help me get clarity and be intentional

TL;DR: I’m currently on a writing challenge to write weekly a post about my personal development journey. In this writing challenge series, I share some of the situations that I encounter and what I do in those situations. If you find them inspirational and helpful, let me know in a comment below. By sharing your reactions, you help me understand if I can add value to someone else through my writing or consider other ways.

Writing challenge genesis – at first, it was the word. Or the thought?

I love writing.

I love writing stories.

Several years ago, I used to write regularly, yet I am not sure what stopped me from doing it. I guess as it happens with most of those little habits that please us, we toss them down the list, allowing important things to take over. Often one of those important things is work.

Since I remember, I’ve always put everything on top of me. Everything means doing things for others or even my responsibilities (aka work) on top of my needs, instead of just balancing them. You know, having bits of each. There are limits to everything. We cannot just prioritise ourselves or prioritise others. We can keep learning about ourselves to make better-prioritising decisions, without the need for sacrifice – such heroes we want to be.

Journaling – my cathartic personal experience

Writing or better, journaling became a cathartic process in my personal development journey. It helps me get more clarity and wind down my emotional vulcanos. It helps me to rush less in a conversation and listen more. It helps me keep myself positive instead of going down the catastrophic lane. It helps me be better for myself first, and then for others. It makes me aware of my growth. It helps me vent, lashing out at others before actually doing it so. In fact, in most situations, if someone or something pisses me off, I do my best to take myself out of the situation or conversation. Then, I breathe in, then I breathe out and take a break to write. Handwriting is the best as I cannot do it with my nerves’ speed, forcing me to slow down my angriness. I recently started to move from journaling only when harsh situations pop in, and I feel like a volcano. I’ve started jotting down my ideas, plans, dreams, what I like, what makes me happy, what makes me proud, and so on – all the good vibes. Through journaling, I observe myself and my evolution. And when I do that I am more connected with myself. Such an important connection to keep. Once I am connected and aligned with myself, I am better. And that’s what makes it cathartic to me – the fact that I am actively and aware observe the details that I carelessly ignored before and show how I change. So that’s how helpful journaling is for me.

When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves. —@JackKornfield via @momentumdash

— Monica (@MoniSibisteanu) February 2, 2021

Writing challenge – my brainstorming process and data gathering

But for this challenge, I wanted to make it different and not journal. I want to share situations that I face or faced and how I overcame or managed them. Sometimes, some situations need more time to overcome. So I kept wondering for days what I could write about and when I should start it. I wanted to share thoughts and actions that are useful to others. I’ve brainstormed a lot, and I asked around. Most answers I got from close friends and family were:

• to write about what I like (and I was like you’re kidding me, right?)
• to write about what I don’t like (nope, can’t do that – there is almost zero inspiration there and lots of judgements, nope, I pass)
• to write about topics that I’m interested
• to write about my life experience (no wise woman here, yet!)
• to write about the books I read or about what I’m learning
• to write about my experience of living abroad
• to write about things I’m good at, such as marketing, social media, mentoring, learning or management
• to choose a random topic and see how much I know about that topic (how on earth could this help anyone else but me?!)
• to write about my challenges (meh, I might want to keep some just for me)

The lovely friend I have, right? Full of ideas. Truth be told, I clicked with some, as you can see – those without comments. But I wasn’t convinced. So I went as I often do onto dwelling on the topic. After a couple of days, I start to brainstorm and brainstorm. At one point, I opened my journal asking myself: what on earth I could write about that is useful to others?

Turning self-questioning in my favour

To my surprise, I had no answers but questions. Any brainstorming session starts with a question you might say. And you are right to say so. Although what questions are asked can be a game-changer.

Remember: is not about the answers we give, as it is about the questions we ask.

And that’s what I want to share with you today to mark the first day of my writing challenge :

   the   A R T   O F   A S K I N G    Q U E S T I O N S  

Not ordinary questions, but those simple big questions, from which we tend to run away. I know. I do know that the internet is full of resources on that topic. But hey, the internet is missing one: my own experience with asking questions. So that’s the purpose of this piece of content to share with you my learning experiences. (by now I think you’ve figured out what decision I made right?).

Continue reading, and you’ll find out what are these questions and how the process of self-questioning contributed to my personal growth.

When I said earlier those big questions, I meant those uncomfortable questions. What are those questions? First, let me tell you that there is no rule to say that they are the same for everyone. Those questions we don’t mind asking our friends or peers when they reach us to talk about their troubling, uncomfortable or decisive situations. Secondly, ironically enough, for years, I fail to ask myself and provide an answer to those questions. But hey, I was awesome when I was doing it with others. The feedback was always the same: Thanks for listening and asking me those difficult questions. It helped me understand that there might be a new perspective. Now it seems way easier.

Do you know how smart your brain is?

Do you also know that it aims for the best for you? Our brains are smart. Mine, your, hers, his. It does not matter. And it works towards our benefit, even if it might not look that way. But because we have a smart brain, it gets trickier than we might think to question ourselves in the same way we question others. The natural tendency is to avoid that, as our brain’s main purpose is to keep us alive and preserve energy. Any extras mean a threat to preserving energy, which for our brain it means a higher risk to keep us alive if and when we get into fight or flight mode. What helps to trick our brain is chunking things down and embracing them with pleasure – it takes less energy (motivation) to do what we like than to do what we have or should. An easy tip to trick your brain into that we LOVE questioning ourselves is to write down those questions or, if there’s a topic that requires more time (hence, my writing challenge topic brainstorming) add those questions on a post-it so that you can see them often, helps. In this way, you’re asking those questions in a physical form. You’re basically taking it out of your mind and is always helpful to transform some of our thoughts into actual actions, right?

In my case, each time I manage to have myself answer these big questions, without mistakes, I get results, no matter the topic. And I discovered how it helps me be more focused and more intentional. It helps when I observe that I’m slowly and surely derailing from my way. It works for every let-get-myself-back-on-track moment. But hey, don’t get me wrong – it isn’t easy at all. I mean, you know what they say: is easier said than done. Oh, boy, how I wish for that to not be true.

The last one is the most powerful because it is hard for me to associate the routine with joy or pleasure. Unconsciously I see every repetitive action I do, as a burden and a boring thing, which’s anything but useful, especially when the routine is critical for joining challenges or setting goals. However, this is another topic for another day.

Magic happens for me once I answer my 6 big questions

Once you’ve answered those big questions of yours, you’ll find yourself not only in front of some answers but in front of a very first draft of a plan or strategy for whatever solution you’re after.

But hey don’t believe me. Don’t take my words for granted. Try it for yourself and see what happens. Adjust on the way if needed. Be flexible instead of rigid. There is no good or wrong when it comes to personal development. There is just useful or useless for you at that certain moment in that specific situation.

Let me know in the comments if this article brought some value to your personal development journey.