journaling

Finding Clarity After Vacation: Tips to Hear Yourself

Bardees, , ,

“I can’t hear myself”.

That’s what my coaching group members said after returning from long vacations with their families.

Vacations are great. Transitioning back home is not always so great. You feel disoriented. You may struggle to settle in and feel homesick already. Your mind is cloudy. You can’t hear yourself think.

Does that happen to you after long vacations or maybe a few sick days?

How do you go about hearing yourself? How do you gain some clarity and perspective? How do you hop back on the daily ordinary merry-go-round of your life?

One way to hear yourself is to talk to your best friend, who is a great listener, and sort out what you’re thinking aloud.

I can’t count the number of times I made small decisions while talking about my confusion to a friend in person or even in a voice note, and this reminds me why coaching is valuable. Isn’t that what coaching is about? Figuring things out for yourself in the presence of your coach? Undoubtedly, a coach’s probing questions are invaluable, but more important are the silence and attention an excellent coach gives. This attention feels so rare in our day-to-day interactions. It is a gift.

I remember when I tried being coached the first time, I was talking and talking, and the coach was keenly listening that I felt weird for not getting interrupted and reaching that far in my thoughts. It felt new, unfamiliar, and good.

Can we be more like that for each other? Can we listen to a dear friend until she feels weirded out by not interrupting her other than to say, “And what else is going on?”

Can we hold back from saying “Me too!” too soon to keep the spotlight on them a little longer?

We don’t need to do that all the time, but we especially need to do that with that friend who is all over the place and needs to hear herself again.

Another way to hear yourself talk is, of course, journaling. Cal Newport, in Digital Minimalism, quotes writer May Sarton, who wrote in Journal of a Solitude about how solitude gave her the space to reconnect with her inner life:

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone.”

This resonated.

When you set time aside to think and write about the good times on your vacation, certain qualities about your family members, or simply do a weekly review, you appreciate the details of your life more. In journaling, you quiet the noise in your head, gain perspective about what works and what doesn’t, and plan changes. After journaling, you use the newfound awareness and implement those changes.

Journaling is one of the best ways to hear yourself and figure out your next move.

Can you hear yourself?

Which way will you try today?

Finding Clarity After Vacation: Tips to Hear Yourself

What Would Make Today Great?

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This is a question in the morning section of the Five-Minute Journal -which I adore-that did not sit with me right when I first used it; because the answer, in my opinion, is always: me.

I used to think of the answer by looking over my day and what events I was expecting to happen, like receiving a shipment or a meeting going well. Then I shifted the way I read the question. I now ask myself every morning: How will I make today great?

It’s up to me to make today great.

I will make today great through my actions and attitude. Therefore, I answer this question with my intentions for the day such as being kind, leaving to/from work early, respecting my writing practice, and enjoying my time with my kids. Or I answer this question with my top three priorities for the day, or what the book Make Time calls “the highlight of the day”, which could be work-related like finishing a presentation or as simple as spending time with my husband.

So, yes, good things are about to happen today; YOU will make them happen.
New perspectives are going to emerge; YOU will start seeing differently.
Fantastic progress in your goals is actualizing; YOU finally realize progress is more important than perfection.

It is totally up to you.

You get to choose how you will show up today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. Please, don’t let yesterday’s mistakes ever hold you back from starting over. Not giving yourself permission to start over is, in fact, self-punishment. You are not making amends by remaining stuck. Choose to forgive yourself and move on. Forgiving yourself means believing you are worthy despite your mistakes. You are worthy of new beginnings. No matter what your darkness is trying to tell you, believe in your light because that is who you truly are.

P.S: Happy March, subscribe to my newsletter here to get the Sunday Spark.

What Would Make Today Great?

Spark Yourself

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This is an excerpt from a wonderful book I read 4 years ago called book “How to Live a Good Life” by Jonathan Fields about a life quest the perplexes most people which is defining their passion and purpose. I learned from Jonathan and the author Elizabeth Gilbert and many others that we can only follow our curiosity as a guide to find things we enjoy doing with passion, so here it goes:

“Time for you to spark yourself! What are the things that you want to invest time, energy, money, and effort to do, learn, or participate in more? Answer as many of the following questions as you can. Truth is, it’s often easier to have fewer sparks, because then you spend less time trying to decide which to devote time and effort to. You can still contribute to the world in a way that lights you up.

If you find yourself struggling to answer for present-day you, answer for 12-year-old you. Sometimes by the time we reach adulthood, our true sparks are buried so deep we have forgotten how to see them. Reconnecting with your inner 12-year-old, without regard to whether adult society holds your answers valid, can be a great place to start.

  • Am I curious about anything in particular?
  • Is there a big question I’d love to answer?
  • Is there a problem I feel compelled to solve?
  • Are there things that fascinate me? Is there a topic or field or thing or pursuit or even a person that I have a deep yearning to know more about?
  • Are there activities that I get lost in?
  • Are there things I love to do where I lose track of time and would pay to be able to do more?
  • Is there something I want to master? Is there an art or field or pursuit I’d love to be really good at, maybe even world-class great?
  • Is there some person or community or being I feel compelled to help? It doesn’t have to be human; it could be an animal, a plant, or even a planet.

Look at your answers, then ask how you might be able to weave more of the things that spark you into your days.“

Note: Spark Yourself is the title of the chapter I took this excerpt from. I totally forgot how amazing this book was until Readwise app reminded me of it.

I love the word Spark which is why I named my weekly newsletter “The Sunday Spark”, subscribe to it and check the archive here.

Spark Yourself

What do I get out of Journaling?

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  • Detangling my thoughts.
  • Inspecting my emotional state.
  • Gaining clarity about my intentions for the day and where I’m going in my life.
  • Meditating on my actions of the previous day, especially the ones that were unfriendly or uncaring.
  • Heightening self- awareness
  • Releasing negativity and calming the noise in my head.
  • Practicing Gratitude.
  • Gaining insight and better understanding of and compassion towards others.
  • Fine-tuning my life by tracking it.
  • Resetting my values.
  • Zooming out to big picture view.
  • Focusing on my goals.
  • Evidence I walked the earth.

These are just a few of what you would get when you journal every day.

Totally worth your time.

What do I get out of Journaling?

Fear encore

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Last week I watched Seth Godin in a LIVE Q&A session where someone asked him what to do about fear of failing in their new small business. Seth answered beautifully (and I am paraphrasing) to write down the worst case scenario if they go for it and how they can be prepared if it does, and to also write the best case scenario. Then, Seth said that both scenarios probably wouldn’t happen, but now we are better prepared if they do. Back to work.

This is the same advice that Tim Ferriss gave in his TED talk encouraging us to set fears instead of goals.

You can do Tim Ferris’s fear-setting exercise here and read more about it in this amazing article he wrote

One last thing, I would like you to notice with me how yesterday’s post and today’s are basically telling us the same thing: WRITE down your fears. Unless you face them and see what they are trying to say; you would remain paralyzed.

Fear encore

Food journaling

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I started food journaling 3 weeks ago to track the reason of digestive system problems I’ve had for a while. I never attempted logging what I ate before because I usually don’t have weight goals and thought this was the only reason people would go for food journaling.

After trying it, I realized it’s amazing how food journaling habit makes us more mindful of what we eat. We actually pause and think before we eat because whatever it is, it will go into the food journal.

I’d like to keep this habit because I already had a very quick win defining my stomach pain’s root cause. I would encourage you to try it and tie food types to uncomfortable physical symptoms like headaches and bloating, so you can experiment with your diet based on that. We owe this to our bodies.

(in case you wonder: my trigger is sunny-side-up eggs, I would never have considered it because I’ve been having them for years).

Food journaling