One of the most important habits anyone can develop is intentional reflection. Reflection creates clarity from chaos and can be defined as "the process that turns experience into insight."

What you reflect on determines what you will learn.
- John Maxwell

John Maxwell advises us to "Take time to reflect where you are, where you want to go, and the road to achieve the same in his book ‘The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Their Full Potential.' He suggests we set aside specific time to pause, take intentional time to allow the lesson to catch up. 

When you take time to pause, you:

• Investigate – Discover the truth and flow
• Incubate – Reflect on your experience, identify ideas
• Illuminate – Focus on relevant insights
• Illustrate – Flesh out the ideas

Keep a Journal

Keeping a journal has been the most helpful habit I've developed. I attribute every beneficial decision and insightful conclusion I've made to this practice. Reflecting on past experiences (recent and not so recent) gives the opportunity to gain the lesson from the event. Simply writing out what happened, the details surrounding the event, and how I feel / felt about it has allowed me to grow personally and professional at an exponential rate.  The lessons from dedicated reflection are invaluable, but there is so much more to keeping a journal.  

Life is happening all the time.  If you don't take time to investigate each aspect of life, you might just wake up dead and not realize the role you play in your own life. I started my journal in 2011 and have personally experienced the following benefits:

Challenge Limited Thinking

How often do you prevent yourself from doing something, or going for something, because of limited thinking?  I found I did this more often than not. Through some clever journal prompts like "Where you are you holding yourself back in life" I discovered areas I was subconsciously convincing myself I was incapable and/or unworthy of pursing my goals. Getting into the habit of asking "Is that true?" or "Is the opposite true?" is a helpful way to break through some limited belief structures as well as simply trying to rephrase thoughts that come up.

For example, let's say you want to move into a nicer home in a nicer area, but you think to yourself "I can't afford the rent there."  Now don't get me wrong, it's certainly possible that you technically can't afford the rent.  But it's also entirely possible that this is limited thinking.  So, let's just test it out: Is the opposite true, or could it be true? "I can afford the rent there." In this case, it's easy to reject this one.  No, at present, I cannot afford the rent in the nicer area.  Now, we can try rephrasing the statement a few ways and see what comes up:

• Maybe I could afford the rent there.
• How could I afford the rent there?
• Can I afford to move into the the vicinity of that neighborhood?
• How much can I afford to pay in rent? How do I know? 

One of my favorite quotes is "The worst decision is no decision; The best decision is one you can justify." The point is not whether or not you push yourself to move; The point is you accurately and confidently know why you are or are not moving; That you are making your decisions from a confident place of clarity. If you run around believing everything you think without ever challenging that thinking, I promise you'll be stuck in the same place forever. 

Gives Voice to Emotions

If you've known me for any amount of time, you know that I've had to intentionally rediscover my emotions.  For a long time, I didn't really feel feelings in any meaningful way. Through therapy and a dedicated meditation practice, I am now able to sense how I'm feeling, which gives me insight to myself, makes me more empathetic and understanding to those around me. 

However, those emotions need a way to speak. They need to be heard and more often than not, the present moment is not the appropriate time to express them. In addition, the initial emotional reaction to any given situation is not typically the appropriate or complete response I'd like to express. By journalling about how I'm feeling about a person or situation, I can flesh out the thoughts, emotions, and decide my course of action going forward with complete clarity. 

More often than I care to admit, I transcribe EXACTLY what part of me wants to say to another person, but my higher self is aware saying those things would make the situation worse, not better.  Writing it out allows me to express anger, frustration, jealously, resentment, or other fear based insecurities without embarrassing myself or another. 

Find Solutions to Problems

For many years, if I had a problem, wasn't sure which direction to go, or was otherwise feeling "stuck" I'd go talk it out with some lucky individual, usually 3-5 lucky individuals. While somewhat helpful, the truth is no one can help you solve your problems but you. Others do not have all of the information and you can't explain your experience of all the information; No else knows what you truly want, what feels right to you, except you. I finally realized that I have to make the final decision on everything and no one decision is ever fully correct.  

Have you ever experienced someone coming to you with a problem they clearly have not thought out at all? Even worse, have you experienced someone coming to you repeatedly with the same problem?  Under the annoyance and frustration from this experience is a deep sadness and compassion for this person; We can see them struggling and we want to help, but they seem intent on remaining stuck, remaining in the same place by refusing to get traction in any one direction.  

Do not do this. Instead, write down your problem in your journal.  Write down all the possible solutions, pick your top 3 solutions. Write out the pros and cons of each option, write what might prevent you from following through and how you will remove those barriers, and write out people who might have insight or tips to succeed. Then, if you feel it necessary, call a couple people and ask for their input on YOUR plan to solve YOUR problem. Do you see the difference?  In the first example, you went with a problem for someone to solve; In the second, you went to someone for their opinion on your solution. You gave them an actual opportunity to help you rather than an opportunity to feel helpless.  

The best part is you may not need to go to anyone at all.  Next time you are together, you can simply report on a problem you had, what your doing about it, and how that's going for you. No need to ask for help at all because you completely handled it by working through the issue through your journalling practice :)

Observe Patterns

Finally, one surprising benefit is that by keeping a written record of what's been going on in my life, I quickly started recognizing patterns. For example, I found certain individuals consistently made me feel less than, confused, taken advantage of and generally frustrated. I had not noticed that before reviewing my last 6 months of entries. I discovered what routines and habits were working well for me and which were not working so well.  

One of the best parts is looking back on entries about events that I likely would have forgotten, the small events and moments in life that go unnoticed unless consciously observed. 

Start a Journal

If you're ready to start a journal, you might be feeling kind of anxious or nervous about it.  Remember no one is going to read your journal but you, unless you decide to share, there is no way to do it wrong, there is no standard to meet, and it gets easier / more rewarding with practice. 

For your first entry, maybe try something like any or all of the below prompts. You can of course rephrase any prompt, anytime, for any reason:

• "I'm starting this journal because...."
• "I've been thinking about starting a journal for a while, I was held back by....
• "My hope is that by dedicating myself to a journal practice I will..... (find, realize, reclaim, feel, etc)
• "My fear is that by dedicating myself to a journal practice I will.... (not be good enough, fail, not do it right, whatever)
• "What finally got me to start this journal was.... 

Conclusion

Everyone who has done anything worthwhile in their life keeps a journal. The cost is next to nothing, you can journal anytime, anywhere. You will think more clearly, process emotion faster and more appropriately, you'll make better decisions, understand yourself better, identify toxic people and situations from your life more quickly, create better routines for yourself, and in general will enjoy a higher quality of life in every possible way.

Keep a journal.