Journaling Is The Best Way to Enhance Your Self-Awareness

Journaling Is The Best Way to Enhance Your Self-Awareness

My 31st Birthday Reflection.

It has been 1 year since my biggest journal and reflection session yet! I spent two days on my own for my 30th birthday and packed every minute with journaling, visualization and meditation. It is becoming a tradition that I spend my birthday alone. Quality time with myself is one of the best gifts I could ask for and is especially necessary since having two young children. 

On my 30th birthday, I was pregnant with my second child. Now, my daughter is almost a 1-year-old! I needed to get my thoughts down on paper as I wanted to figure out how I could still achieve my dreams while being totally absorbed in motherhood. My kids light up my world and give me reason for everything I do and every decision I make, but it’s hard to work on myself when my children require my attention day and night.

I had no idea what job would allow me the time to work on myself and my goals, while looking after my kids. All I knew is that it wouldn’t be a 9-5. I literally thought to myself: I would love to read, write, and work on bettering myself every day. But where will I find the time?

Time. Routines. Schedules… Time – is what it always boils down to for me. How can I create more time to do what I want? 

After 48 hours of alone time, I knew what I wanted – the freedom of time. And to use that time to improve myself. I knew the person I would need to become. I knew the habits I needed to break and the ones I needed to start. However, I still didn’t know what ‘job’ I could do to get me there. Unfortunately, there are no jobs that will provide this.

I focused on and visualized my ideal lifestyle every day.  3 Months later, the idea seemed so obvious as it seemingly landed in my lap during a conversation with my friend. A personal development blog! The perfect place to blend my passions of reading, writing and self-improvement.

Without knowing it, starting a blog was exactly what I wanted to do! I didn’t even care that there was a chance no-one would read it! Little did I know that the personal-development industry was valued at over $44 BILLION in 2022. What?! Other people love this stuff too? It took me another 3 months to build my blog and post my first article. Things take longer when you have a 3 year old and a newborn. 

Reflecting on my past and where I wanted to be in the future led me to type this exact post, on my 31st birthday. In the beginning of this year, I thought blogging was dead. Now, blogging is the only thing I want to do! This blog is a place for me to share everything I learn as I work on bettering myself and achieve my goals.  I have many goals but in 1 year, I have achieved 2 of 5 major goals! I will go into more detail about that in my 2024 New Year Reflection post but for now, I can confidently say that I am on the right track to achieving the final 3 goals that are still left. 

Here is a list of the 6 major lessons I’ve learned in the past year:

1. A year goes by QUICKLY
2. Start now because in a year’s time you will be kicking yourself that you didn’t.
3. You do not need to have a perfect routine and perfect habits for things to change for the better. Just do your best to be better every day.
4. The journey to a better life is all about your “Bounce-Back Rate”. This is how quickly you get yourself back on track after slipping into old routines and habits.
5. Things will change a lot faster than you expect.
6. Spend time journaling and figuring out what you really want. There is no better ROI than that.

If you’re struggling to achieve your dreams without knowing what you want, read this article: 5 Steps To Achieve Your Dreams When You Don’t Know What You Want

If you really want to dive deeper then send me a message and I will email you a worksheet that I developed to help with the exercises I mention in this article.

As always, thank you for reading! I would love know what you think so please leave a comment and I will get back to you.