Key Journal Writing Prompts: Your Life Transformation Makeover (Step One)
Key Journal Writing Prompts: Your Life Transformation Makeover (Step One)
By Ronda Del Boccio
NABBW’s Entrepreneurial Authoring Expert
Chances are excellent that there is at least one character trait, habit or push-button response that you would love to change, if only you had an easy way to do it.
Maybe one person knows exactly how to push your buttons (and does it often!), and you would like to stop responding the way you always do.
Maybe you notice a bad habit you would like to break
Maybe you want to try on a new role or behavior in your life to change the results you get.
If only you had a simple and, most importantly, effective way to break patterns you do not want so you could change your life at will. That would be amazing, wouldn\’t it? It would, especially if it did not involve therapy, drugs or abdicating your life to live as a hermit on a mountain.
The good news is that you DO have such a tool at hand (literally). It is all natural, life-transforming, and absolutely free.
That life transformation makeover tool is writing.
Writing is a powerful means for discovering the truth of what is going on in your mind. Keeping a journal or even writing your thoughts into the computer when you feel the urge can help you see aspects of your life with greater clarity.
You might not have thought of this before, but writing can even help you change your habits.
How?
Because your subconscious feelings and underlying beliefs don\’t reveal themselves to you if you\’re just chewing and stewing on things.
In other words, it is much more powerful to write than it is to roll thoughts around inside your head.
Using journal writing prompts like the ones you will discover here, you can:
- Notice patterns.
- Try out new ways of responding to people
- Try on new ways of behaving
- Help break yourself of a habit that does not serve you
- And more.
What\’s the difference between Pondering and Writing?
Imagine your brain is like a digital video recorder that can let you replay scenes as often as you want—but with one important difference.
When you record your favorite TV show, the various scenes and episodes don\’t change. But inside your own head, things can change very much, and often do.
When you\’re mulling things over in your head, you tend to get caught up in the thoughts and amplify what really happened. You replay the most embarrassing, annoying, or aggravating moments over and over and over.
Whatever you feel is “wrong” or “bad” becomes astronomically worse as you keep replaying the scenario in your mind.
Just stewing, mulling, or mentally going through things in your mind brings no change in the emotion. No resolution. No shift.
Here\’s a story about a strong woman who got caught up in a pattern that does not serve her well. I\’ll call her Sandy, and she may be a lot like you.
** Sandy\’s Story of Bad Luck **
After losing her job to downsizing, Sandy said, “Why is it I always end up a loser?”
Have YOU ever asked a question like that?
Certainly, there is no one answer for everyone. All Sandy knows now is that she feels awful. She may not even realize there is a pattern she has the power to break.
But inherent in the way she asked, with her voice full of angst, is self-loathing.
Unfortunately, Sandy invests energy into emotionally beating herself up, but she could choose to focus on breaking the habit.
No, she can\’t change the fact that a company lays people off, but she definitely is in charge of her own feelings about the situation. She tends to feel that anything that doesn\’t go her way is “bad luck.”
She also tends to be hard on herself and to cut herself down with the deftness of a fencing champion. ** Chances are excellent that nobody will be harder on you than YOU will. **
What Sandy said next revealed just how much she was beating herself up emotionally.
Sandy told her best friend, “I must be exceptionally stupid.”
What a hurtful thing to say about yourself!
The key to changing your results is to change how you experience what happens to you. Maybe some habits of word, thought and action are nothing more than big fat lies. Once you see the lie, you can release it forever!
Sandy realized she felt that losing her job made her a loser, and that being a loser meant she was not worthy of being loved. How shocking! Seeing the words on the page made her realize she had been living a big fat lie.
Using writing prompts, she was able to understand the lie and thus break the habit.
Imagine going into a job interview feeling like a loser vs. going in feeling like a winner. Which attitude is more likely to get you noticed?
The winning attitude will always serve Sandy well, even if she does not get the first job for which she applies.
So rather than stewing and chewing over things in your mind, now you can write.
** Useful writing prompts **
These journal writing prompts can help you ask good questions, move through the emotions and enter a journey of self discovery.
Here are some good prompts to get you started:
- Write your feelings about the situation that is on your mind. Give yourself permission to be honest with yourself in your writing. Get them all out of you. Then let go.
- Write the patterns you observe in your life. Once you see a pattern, you can decide whether it is a good habit or one that hurts you. If it\’s a harmful pattern, simply knowing it exists takes you most of the way to breaking it.
- Rehearse the new way you want to act or respond by writing out the new scene. Read it often and implement the change into your life.
- Write a plan to make any changes you desire to make in your life. Look for all the opportunities to find support for the desired outcome.
And if you prefer questions, here are some good ones to spark your self discovery in writing:
- What pattern do I notice myself falling into? Is it a good habit or a bad one?
- What one experience do I most want to have? How can I put myself in a position to make it happen?
- What is my ultimate purpose in life? What can I do to live my purpose?
- What is the most loving thing I can do right now?
The key to self-mastery is to look for patterns, reflect on what you have written, and then take the appropriate actions to create the change you desire in your life. These journal writing prompts will set you firmly upon the right path.
Receive inspirational thoughts, quotes, stories & more at http://ProfitableStorytelling.com/inspirationalstories. #1 bestselling author Ronda Del Boccio is known globally as The Story lady because she teaches you to create the best ever: The story of YOU living with passion, love, joy and purpose. She is legally blind but never lets that get in her way!
