How a Journal Entry Saved Me From Taking the Wrong Job
A little while ago I was contemplating going back to a job similar to one I had done about fifteen years ago.
I had great memories of that job.
I was working with people facilitating workshops, and loved every minute of it.
I always had terrific groups.
I was energized by them, and enjoyed getting them involved and seeing their response.
I also did some one on one coaching on the appropriate topic and the clients and I had excellent rapport: they really seemed engaged and to benefit from the sessions.
Or so I thought.
That was indeed my memory.
As I thought of going back to work in this industry I could only remember the good things and had in front of me the opportunity of a similar position again.
However, quite by chance, I came across my journal from that time.
What a surprise! I did indeed have all these feelings as I outlined them above, but only for the first short "honeymoon" period.
After that, according to my trusty journal, I found it very taxing to try to motivate groups who really did not want to be there, and were in no mood to be motivated.
I wrote in quite explicit terms of how difficult this job was becoming and was only hanging on because it was about to end anyway, and I didn't want to leave my employer in the lurch at the end of the contract.
An optimist by nature, my natural inclination to see the happy side of life was influencing my memories and preventing me from seeing how it really was.
So I did not go back into that field of work, and I am happy I did not.
I took into account what my journal told me I found tiresome, and what my journal told me I still enjoyed in the job.
Then I did some thinking as to what type of job would give me the good stuff and leave out the bad from my previous position.
As a result, I found much more congenial work that I still enjoy to this day.
My point in relating this story is to demonstrate that how we remember things is not always (or perhaps I should say, seldom is) how they really were.
Perhaps if you are inclined to a naturally less optimistic attitude your memory may well recall more of the negative and miss out some of the positives, or distort things in some other way.
It is however unlikely, regardless of your disposition, that you will be remembering things exactly as they really were.
That is the benefit of journaling.
A journal does not distort anything.
It keeps things exactly as you told it they were in the first place.
This makes it a wonderful place to return to when understanding about past events, or about people who have not been in your life for a while, really were.
It is your reality check from the past.
You don't have a journal to check? Well, you can't do much about that, but you can start now to make sure you have one to check from this day onwards.
You can create a general journal that covers anything that is in your mind at the time you write.
Or you can create a focused or targeted journal that describes the events and the emotions surrounding one specific area of your life that is important to you.
It is of course perfectly reasonable to have more than one targeted journal on the go at one time.
You do not have to write laboriously in each every day.
Instead, just whenever something you want to remember occurs, you record it in the appropriate journal.
An example of two targeted journals that one person could be keeping at the same time is this.
Let's say you are trying to achieve something specific in your life, something that to you spells "Success.
" For this is would be a terrific and empowering idea to keep a Success Journal.
But at the same time you have a wonderful new baby, or grandbaby.
A Mother's or Grandmother's journal would make perfect sense, so you do not lose a minute of the precious moments of this new, little wonder's early years.
It would take no more writing than if you recorded it in a general journal, but in years to come, you could look back and see your successes recorded all together in one place, and the happiness, joy and some tears perhaps of the time when your child or grandchild was small, all recorded in another place.
Focused journaling makes perfect sense.
It is easy.
It takes no more time or effort than general journaling but it reaps greater rewards.
And of course, it reaps massively greater rewards than no journaling at all! So Journal! The benefits are endless.
I had great memories of that job.
I was working with people facilitating workshops, and loved every minute of it.
I always had terrific groups.
I was energized by them, and enjoyed getting them involved and seeing their response.
I also did some one on one coaching on the appropriate topic and the clients and I had excellent rapport: they really seemed engaged and to benefit from the sessions.
Or so I thought.
That was indeed my memory.
As I thought of going back to work in this industry I could only remember the good things and had in front of me the opportunity of a similar position again.
However, quite by chance, I came across my journal from that time.
What a surprise! I did indeed have all these feelings as I outlined them above, but only for the first short "honeymoon" period.
After that, according to my trusty journal, I found it very taxing to try to motivate groups who really did not want to be there, and were in no mood to be motivated.
I wrote in quite explicit terms of how difficult this job was becoming and was only hanging on because it was about to end anyway, and I didn't want to leave my employer in the lurch at the end of the contract.
An optimist by nature, my natural inclination to see the happy side of life was influencing my memories and preventing me from seeing how it really was.
So I did not go back into that field of work, and I am happy I did not.
I took into account what my journal told me I found tiresome, and what my journal told me I still enjoyed in the job.
Then I did some thinking as to what type of job would give me the good stuff and leave out the bad from my previous position.
As a result, I found much more congenial work that I still enjoy to this day.
My point in relating this story is to demonstrate that how we remember things is not always (or perhaps I should say, seldom is) how they really were.
Perhaps if you are inclined to a naturally less optimistic attitude your memory may well recall more of the negative and miss out some of the positives, or distort things in some other way.
It is however unlikely, regardless of your disposition, that you will be remembering things exactly as they really were.
That is the benefit of journaling.
A journal does not distort anything.
It keeps things exactly as you told it they were in the first place.
This makes it a wonderful place to return to when understanding about past events, or about people who have not been in your life for a while, really were.
It is your reality check from the past.
You don't have a journal to check? Well, you can't do much about that, but you can start now to make sure you have one to check from this day onwards.
You can create a general journal that covers anything that is in your mind at the time you write.
Or you can create a focused or targeted journal that describes the events and the emotions surrounding one specific area of your life that is important to you.
It is of course perfectly reasonable to have more than one targeted journal on the go at one time.
You do not have to write laboriously in each every day.
Instead, just whenever something you want to remember occurs, you record it in the appropriate journal.
An example of two targeted journals that one person could be keeping at the same time is this.
Let's say you are trying to achieve something specific in your life, something that to you spells "Success.
" For this is would be a terrific and empowering idea to keep a Success Journal.
But at the same time you have a wonderful new baby, or grandbaby.
A Mother's or Grandmother's journal would make perfect sense, so you do not lose a minute of the precious moments of this new, little wonder's early years.
It would take no more writing than if you recorded it in a general journal, but in years to come, you could look back and see your successes recorded all together in one place, and the happiness, joy and some tears perhaps of the time when your child or grandchild was small, all recorded in another place.
Focused journaling makes perfect sense.
It is easy.
It takes no more time or effort than general journaling but it reaps greater rewards.
And of course, it reaps massively greater rewards than no journaling at all! So Journal! The benefits are endless.
