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4 Dynamite Tips for your Practice of Keeping a Mindful Journal

By Alana D. Frazier

A mindful perspective is key not because it automatically improves our quality of life, but because it permits us to project and apply useful meanings onto our outcomes in life. Since we have the ability to decide what things mean, we can continually re-tool our associations so that they keep us in a perpetual state of improvement. When we improve our ability to create useful meanings, we improve our perceived quality of life. When we improve our perceived quality of life, we naturally feel more empowered and hence feel more able to take bigger and better actions.

Perspective is what's required for us to shed new light on the existing meanings we believe to be true that perhaps aren't in our best interest. How could it happen that we espouse beliefs that are not beneficial and how can mindfulness help?

We have the choice of what to believe. Many times, it requires a shift in perspective to see that our belief system is in conflict. Unless we are mindful, we may not know which belief better suits our future outcomes and there would be no guarantee we would drive our actions in the future along the beneficial course.

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Schedule It

Take a little bit of time out to write every day. In almost every case, early morning is the right time for most people. Maybe not for everyone, but morning is a good time for most people because there hasn't yet been much of a chance to get caught up in daily activities, there's still a lot of mental flexibility leftover from just waking from dreams. This is why morning is also a terrific time to meditate. For the purpose of this blog, lengthy meditation is less necessary than some sort of mindful practice.

Everyone is to some extent a creature of habit and routine. Even people who really love variety (such as myself) benefit from having some routines. Don't like the idea of more "routine" in your life? Change your approach and think of writing as a ritual. A writing ritual is a prescribed way of doing the task that suits you so that you can absolutely guarantee results. Everyone should be so lucky as to have days filled with empowering rituals. Writing can be the first of many to come.

Renew Your Definitions

Ask yourself each morning (or whatever time is right for you) what your approach is and what your intent is. Connect with the force that drives and compels and inspires you. By continually examining your ritual beginnings, your path will become clearly defined. Then move onto the next step.

Write Like You Breathe

Basically what this means is writing steadily at a pace you can sustain without needing to stop to think of ideas or to speed up because you're worried about forgetting your thoughts. You can think of writing as something closely akin to breath. I think of ideas as having their own breath. Just as the process of staying in flow relies on your ability to stay balanced between boredom and anxiety, the simple act of breathing also relies on out-breath and in-breath. Think about it physiologically: what do you do when you begin to feel bored? Exhale. What happens if you are high-strung and anxious? Gasping and shallow breathing. So, write like you breathe. Keep it steady between extremes.

Do a Little More Each Day

No matter what your excuse, find a way to do a little bit of extra writing each day. If writing doesn't come easy for you, write an extra sentence or paragraph. In a few weeks write an extra page. Writing will get easier and it will become just as easy to write an extra page as it once was to write an extra sentence. Remember that the thing that keeps you improving is the effort that drives you past your perceived boundaries.

If writing comes easy for you, you may want to write deeper as opposed to longer. What this means is to write more mindfully each day. If at first you are flowing fairly transparently from word to word, you may want to slow down your pace and put more pressure on each word and phrase. Do technical things, like varying your phrases or employing formal constraints (write using big words, or write using no words longer than four letters, etc.). Most importantly, focus more on what you're writing but keep your thinking more and more limber each day.

If you find it easy to focus only on the task at hand, try raising your level of awareness to the entire room you're in while maintaining steadiness on your writing process. No matter what your skill level or interest, if you improve any aspect a little each day and you do this consistently, you'll begin to notice how you've reaped the benefits of compounding interest with relation to self-improvement and the creative process.

Some people want to put off challenging themselves to do a little beyond what they thought was possible because they don't feel like they're ready for it. No matter who you are, you can always push yourself to do a little more. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll start seeing massive improvements you never would have thought possible without giving it a shot. Remember to encourage yourself.

About the Author

Alana D. Frazier is a copywriter at the write an essay for me service. Besides, she is fond of learning something new so that she tries to keep up with advancing technologies. Besides, she attends different conferences and presentations to improve her skills.



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