Feeling preoccupied? Start journaling!

Self-Development

Sometimes we all feel that it’s just too much. Too many tasks on the list that never ends. Too many expectations from the outside world. Too much pressure to be perfect, to manage doing everything and to not lose any touch of optimism, level of energy or creativity. Too many distractions, phone calls, messages, Teams meetings – all of those things that stop us from being focused and concentrated on what really matters. And where among all those things journaling can find its place?

It can help even when we are super organized, efficient, with a good balance in our lives, we can struggle sometimes. Our brains are not programmed to process this amount of data and stimulants we get every day, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that we feel just tired of being preoccupied. And journaling is a great tool to ease the pain, improve a lot of areas in your life and what’s most important – keep your mind calm and free of being overwhelmed.

How does it work for me? Here are few things I hope will be an inspiration to see what you can life to live it better.

Journaling is a part of my morning routine

I am a morning person, so a morning routine is one of my favorite parts of the day. I get up at 6AM every day, do my workout session and then have a breakfast and I journal a little bit. I’ve added journaling to my morning routine almost 3 years ago, after participating in Brand Minds Conference where one of the speakers introduced the Miracle Morning idea. I’ve started small, wrote down elements from the exercise. And then, I’ve realized how much it helps me organizing my thoughts and sometimes let off steam and frustrations without hurting other people.

It takes me 5-6 minutes every day, not more, and is a great addition to all of the elements that make my morning full and structured.

Journaling keeps me organized

When I journal, I always create a space to make a list of the gains from yesterday and 3 things I want to achieve today (I wrote more about it here). Those 3 things I want to gain in a certain day help me to be more focused on what is really important for me, and checking if I achieved what I wanted the previous day gives me information about myself. Was I focused enough? What can I do differently today to gain what I want and need?

You can add a structure of your day there, the main things you want to do for yourself in different areas. It can be interesting to divide the elements in categories: work, development, health, relations, food etc. That way you will see day by day how you spend your time, and maybe which areas of your life are overinvested and underinvested. You can ask yourself then: why is that? Is it harder for me to do some things than others? What can I do to redirect my energy on those areas that are important, but I don’t spend a lot of time on them at the moment? Sometimes just a change of focus on certain elements can help you in seeing things differently, from another angle.

It helps me to regulate emotions

We’re all getting stressed, frustrated, without an influence on what we want to have an influence on. We’re getting mad at other people (close to us or really far from us, i.e. the politicians or CEOs), angry, scared, disappointed or sad. And of course, we’re getting mad, frustrated, angry at ourselves.

These are all human, normal emotions. We were taught to not to name them, feel them, to get rid of them as fast as possible. Because FEELINGS ARE BAD. FEELINGS ARE UNPROFESSIONAL.

Don’t cry, be man. Don’t be a sissy.

Don’t get angry, girls are supposed to be nice and smiley.

Sounds familiar?

Those things we hear as children stay with us and we believe them as adults, the most oftenly – unconsciously. Even the most developed, wise, mindful people on the planet have those thoughts in their heads.

Journaling helps me to name what I feel, to take a step back to reflect on that and make a former decision about what I want to do with that emotion. Recognition is a first step of a high level of mental health, to live in a harmony with yourself.

It is a way to discover things

Sometimes when I write, those thoughts, sentences or bullet points are just coming to my mind and fingers. And pretty often I don’t expect some of them to be there, on the piece of paper or in doc file, they just appear. One thought leads to another and unlock other ideas, connect the dots between things I never thought can be linked together.

Journaling can be a great tool to train the creativity muscle, to get yourself carried away by the flow and just let the stream of the thoughts go. It also can be just a fun, easy experience, but it also can be hard, eye-opening or triggering in some way. Regardless of that, you can discover something through it. And you can be closer to yourself, you can free the potential or skills you never knew are there.

Once they are discovered, you can decide what to do with them. But if you don’t know what really is inside of you, how you can make a decision about anything?

The bottom line

For a long time I’ve only read about journaling. We can find online multiple articles about the advantages of it. Or about how much it is a life changer or how it can be applicable to the life of every single person. Now I know that it’s not for everybody, but it works for me, and I gladly share the experience from what I’ve learned from the whole process.

Give it a chance. Give yourself a gift of a beautiful notebook or journal. Make it a 5-minute time only for you, when you can reflect on your day, or plan another one that is in front of you. When you can sum up what you’ve achieved or make a list of things that you are grateful for. It will give you a space to think in this world of infinite rush and distractions.

Wanna share?

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myhome

1 year ago

I agree with your point of view, your article has given me a lot of help and benefited me a lot. Thanks. Hope you continue to write such excellent articles.

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lemanskills

1 year ago

Reply to myhome

thank you, I’m really glad you like it!

Transactional Analysis

What Does It Mean to Be OK-OK?

When I think about all workshops and mentoring processes that I deliver each week, very rarely I don’t talk about it with people. Sooner or later, this is a part of a conversation: whether we work together around communication, feedback, leadership, change or transformation. Today the story about OK-OK Matrix, which another name is Life Positions Matrix. One of the most important elements of Transactional Analysis framework, a base of building outstanding relationship: professional and private. What is the Matrix? The Matrix is a tool that show us four options that consists of set of beliefs, thoughts and feelings we have about ourselves and others. Based on where we are, we have a certain orientation, that becomes a base for our behaviors, ways of reacting on what happens for us: professionally and privately. It doesn’t really matter about which part of our life or work we think, this tool is applicable equally well. You can take a look on how the Matrix looks like on the simple picture below: The first axis describes what we think and believe is a truth when it comes to ourselves: who we are (as people in general, but also in each role we have in our life: professionally and personally), what we do, what we are worth because of that etc. The second axis describes the same elements, but in the context of the external world: it can be another person, a group of people (the entire family, team etc.) or the whole institution (organization, state, the whole political party etc.). Where we are in the Matrix influences on our mood, mindset, behaviors in different situations, the way we react, how we communicate and make decisions. The first thing is to be aware what kind of dominant tendency we have in going into certain quadrants. Quadrant 1: OK-OK OK – OK quadrant is the one that we should aim to be as frequently as possible. This is the space where we are fine, and everybody are fine too. I have good intentions and people have good intentions as well. Of course, not everything and everybody is perfect, but we aim to be the best version of ourselves, we support each other, we share knowledge and work as a team. This is a place where we have and develop a growth mindset. Thanks to that set of thoughts, believes, convictions and decisions we make base on all that we are successful, happy and build a good life. We see opportunities, abundance, instead of gaps and things we don’t have or know. We reach for more, instead of giving up. Quadrant 2: OK-Not-OK OK – Not-OK quadrant appears when you think that you are fine, but others – not so much. Example: ‘I always do everything I can to finish my list of tasks before the day ends, and he never does it. He always works 9-5 and then – regardless of how many things are undone, he just closes his computer and goes home. Ugh, I hate it!’. Or: ‘I’m doing everything I can and this organization? Only requires more and give less and less!’ This place is not healthy for us, since we are going to resent everyone and everything at the end of the day. Even if this is only one person at first, it becomes more and more severe with time. When we are OK and the world not, what we end up with? Hate, resentment, miserable life. I would say that’s not the best place to be, especially in a long run. Quadrant 3: Not-OK-OK Not-OK – OK quadrat is a low self-esteem place. We are there when we think that everybody is fine, successful, happy, except for us. A good example can be: ‘Ugh, everybody has somebody, and I’ll die alone with my cats’ or: ‘Everybody can handle their tasklist, and I never have time for anything!’ When we think about ourselves from this position, we are never good enough. Sometimes we choose one work or life role (consciously or not) that we are so bad at that it’s pathetic, sometimes it’s all over the place. It depends on what level of low self-esteem we took with ourselves from our childhood into the adult life. People who are raising us most of the time has good intentions, but the wording and behavior they use is not so good or adequate to those intentions. Quadrant 4: Not-OK-Not-OK Not-OK – Not-OK quadrant appears when you think that you suck, but other people too, or you have this belief that the environment / organization / economy / world is bad. Example: ‘My goodness, I am so bad at this, but I cannot learn since I don’t have time for anything in this company. My manager always gives me more to do, the colleagues are not helpful at all, and I need to do everything on my own, even if I have no idea what I’m doing’. This is the ultimate, negative place, that we operate from the fixed mindset. We don’t see any opportunities, we use fatalistic view of the world, ourselves, our relationships, competences, organization we work with etc. Everything and everyone are bad, there’s no hope for the better. The Bottom Line The bottom line here is that we fall out of the first quadrant multiple times every single day. It’s impossible to stay there all the time, since we are triggered by different stressors, we have frustrated motivational needs and that’s why we go into distress. Being in another quadrant than the most optimal one is being conditionally OK: I’m (or the world) is OK only if… I fulfill a certain condition. The key thing is to recognize when (in which circumstances) we lose our optimal position and what can we do to faster come back to it. Also, what matters is how we behave in relation to others: our employees, team members, supervisors, stakeholders, colleagues, but also in private

15 September 2024 No Comments

Transactional Analysis

PCM: Communication Channels

When I was describing all 6 Process Communication Model (PCM) types, it dawned on me that if I want to find one aspect of it that interests me, I need to go into each article and look for one part. And there are some of those, that are more important to dig deeper into, a good example is the aspect of communication channel. So I’ve decided that I’ll go into this directing to simplify and edit this experience for you: to go into some aspects of PCM, with practical examples. Hope that’ll be useful and will give you all the impulse to start using it in real life. What Are Communication Channels? Before we go into the details, let’s start with answering this questions: what a channel actually is? Communication channel is the way we build a sentence we want to push forward the other person (doesn’t matter if it’s a written or verbal communication). Surprisingly it really does matter if we put a question mark or a period at the end of the sentence. It matters so much that most of the time it has a huge influence on if the communication will go through or not (will be efficient or will lead to a misunderstanding). What do I mean by that? Take a look on those examples (purposefully not business-related): What do you think about this painting? Please tell me what you think about this painting. Oh man, what a painting, I’m sure it kills us both just from looking at it!!!!! Thank you for being here with me to marvel this painting, I’m more than happy to hear your impressions on it. Do you see the difference? We all have one dominant preference of getting and using the channel, depends on our personality base. When you look on those sentences: which one is the most comfortable for you? Depending on which one you choose, it’s a strong indicator of your base. Requestive Channel The first sentence is a great example of a requestive channel. As you can see, the idea is simple: ask a question (so a sentence with a question mark at the end of it). Using the knowledge that you already have, you can see the difference between the questions that we can ask towards 2 bases that will prefer this channel: Thinker and Persister. Channel is only one part of the puzzle: if we want communication to go through with success we need to combine a preferred channel with a favorite perception. That’s why we’ll ask different question within a conversation with a Thinker and Persister. We’ll ask: Thinker: “What do you think…?” Persister “What is your opinion on…? / What do you believe…?” It is important to ask the right questions. And as much important is to know which channels are not so good to use in communication with certain types. Thinker and Persister will react really badly on others, but the worst thing you can do is to use directive channel. It will trigger them to go straight into distress, reactive aggressively form their attacker mask. Directive Channel Directive channel is about creating the sentence with the dot at the end of it. I would love for all of us to demystify being direct and separate it from being aggressive, rude or too pushy. Being directive is just saying what there’s to be done: I’m not asking you or hesitate. I just say it in a straightforward way, taking care of OK-OK perspective. Two PCM types prefer to get it: Promoter and Imaginer. And again, it will differ on how we build a communication to each of them. That’s because their need of getting directive channel is different: Promoter doesn’t want to waste time, so they just want to get a task and move to action. Imaginer wants to be invited to share what’s in their heads, so they need direct communication to do that. So, the way we is this channel matters. We’ll say: Promoter: “Please create this report for tomorrow, not later than 5PM.” Imaginer: “I need this report to be done by tomorrow, not later than 5PM. Please tell me what you see in your head when I ask you to do it.” Both are tasks we want to delegate for a person but said differently. They are not very good at receiving requestive channel, also Imaginer will react with a drooper mask on Emotive one (too much emotion for them). Emotive Channel Emotive channel is about the positive energy and contact. As we can easily guess, the Rebel is our person here: it’s their favorite channel. In this one they can exchange energy, creative ideas, brainstorm and get into positive contact with others. It works even if it’s just for a little bit at the beginning of the conversation. How can it look like? “OH MAAAAN, this weekend was so dope, I need to tell you about it!” “C’mon, let’s do it and then we’ll go into the agenda: it won’t kill us to talk a little bit!” It is about 2-3 exchanges and then you can go to the point of the meeting or a conversation. Sometimes it’s just about the exchange and that’s enough: especially when you are a Rebel in a base yourself, you’ll enjoy the conversation itself if it’s led that way. Nurturative Channel Last but not least: Harmonizer and their preferred nurturative channel. Nurturative channel is all about seeing a person, feeding their recognition of person need. Harmonizers needs to be seen, as an important part of a team, community or other relationship. Sometimes it’s enough to say: “Thank you for being here. I know that recently it’s been crazy busy and hard, so I really appreciate you finding time to talk.” The key thing here is to give a positive, nurturing recognition of a person, making them visible and important. In the world of endless task lists, constant rush and not

8 September 2024 No Comments

Transactional Analysis

Process Communication Model (PCM): Imaginer

Do you know a person or two who most of the time are staying in silence, observing the world that is around them? During the meetings, a family dinner or other friends gathering they are not the kings or queens of the party, but you can tell that they are processing in their heads what they hear? That’s the Imaginer. The last (but not least) of six personality types in Process Communication Model. We’ve started the story about PCM HERE, then we’ve described the other 5: Persister, Thinker, Promoter, Rebel and Harmonizer. Today we’re adding the missing piece to our PCM puzzle, so we understand different people once we meet them, have them as team members or stakeholders in different circumstances (professional and private). For those of us who has little Imaginer energy (like myself), they might be the hardest to communicate with since they don’t say a lot of things out loud and their processes (i.e. decision making) are longer than in the rest of the types. Why is that? Let’s take a look! How do we recognize Imaginer? Imaginer is a person who experience the world through the lens of reflections (or inactions). Most of the time, they use their reflective mode: they have a lot of processes inside of their heads, so they see many different things in their brains. Sometimes it’s called inactions, since they don’t take action on what they reflect on until somebody says them so. How to recognize an Imaginer in the Base of personality? Again, the easiest way to make a strong hypothesis is to look for the key words that the person uses the most. For Imaginer it will be: “I imagine…”, “As I reflect on that…”, “In my head I can see…”, “I see it that way…”, “I picture…”. They say all that because they operate the best in their internal world. It doesn’t mean that they are antisocial (in a clinical way). I’m sure that you’ve experienced not once, not twice a person who doesn’t say anything, but you see their eyes moving or looking out through the window in intense internal process. That’s because there is a tough reflective sequence that’s happening in the head of that person. They have a lot of things inside them, a lot of options or scenarios they create in a certain situation. The recognition of Imaginer is also easier when we look on their non-verbal communication: like in the Thinker’s case, it’s a flat, computer face, with almost no mimics on it. Their voice is linear, monotonous, static. Their body is still, they don’t use movement to not waste the energy that they can invest in more internal reflective process. They don’t say much, but when they do, that’s what we can observe externally. If you see and hear it, that’s a strong indicator that there’s a Imaginer in the Base on the other side of the communication process. How to use it to get along with that kind of person? What does Imaginer need in communication? The Imaginer needs communication process where they have a chance to reflect on things. Once they do it, here’s a time to directly tell them to share what they have in their heads with us. Extremely important for them as well is to have a space, where they can be alone to reflect, and then they are ready to talk to us. To be efficient in communication with Imaginer, we need to use directive channel of communication. It’s the same story we had in the Promoter’s description: Imaginer needs to know exactly what to do and say to us. It means that asking them questions is not going to work, since they are not responsive to the requestive channel. How to do it right? Using the same example as before: when we want to delegate a task, so a chosen employee covers it, the great approach will be opening the conversation with a direct statement. “Hi Mike, I want you to take a task X. (Now we describe briefly what the task is about). Please tell me what showed in your head when I was describing it to you.” And we give them a moment to reflect. Pushing or rushing them is not going to work well, what can be hard, especially for Promoters and Rebels. They value Autocratic interaction style. It means that they are the most efficient when the other person just tells them what is there to be done and leave them alone, so they can go and focus on the delivery. Straight to the point, sometimes (especially for the people that are not so big fans of a directive communication channel) might look a little harsh or cold. It’s the same situation that we had in Promoter’s case, but the root cause is different. Promoter just needs to get the job done, and Imaginer needs to have direct communication, so they have a one communication and then they are left alone. Also, it helps them so they are not lost in the fog or the infinity of their imagination. Imaginer seeks to answer the existential question: will they come for me? Yes, they prefer to be alone, so they have a space and time to be in their reflective world. But they don’t want to be lonely: they need to have space to say out loud what they imagined. For them this sentence is the truth: Somebody will come for me = I’m valuable as a person A motivational need attached to this PCM type is It’s important to know it that sometimes for Imaginer the best way to help them is to leave them alone. It can be extremely difficult for Harmonizers, Rebels and Promoters, since their energy and need of contact is on higher level. They don’t understand how it is possible that a person can be so long on their own, sometimes even not leaving the house. Again: it’s not antisocial, it’s their way to

1 September 2024 No Comments

Feeling preoccupied? Start journaling!

Journaling is a part of my morning routine

Journaling keeps me organized

It helps me to regulate emotions

It is a way to discover things

The bottom line

Wanna share?

Comments

Related posts

What Does It Mean to Be OK-OK?

PCM: Communication Channels

Process Communication Model (PCM): Imaginer

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