Journals aren’t just a place for moody teenagers to scribble about their crushes in the safety of their own bedroom. In recent years we have seen a growth in the number of people keeping a gratitude journal or career journal, and we feel it is a fantastic way for individuals to keep track of their goals and achievements, and reflect on their day. This is even more so the case for those who work in high pressure industries such as Financial Services, Insurance and Legal.
In fact, keeping a career journal is not only good for your mental health but can help with your career development and future planning...and it doesn’t have to take very long at all.
From helping you take that next step in your career, to offering you great reference material for interviews and CVs, and helping you keep track of your goals, journaling has many benefits. This is why the experts at IDEX have pulled together some tips:
Set some goals
Journaling is a great place to set long and short term goals that are entirely personal to you. Whether it’s ,“Sort out the washing from last week” or “Get promoted”, simply writing it down can help clear the mind in order to start actioning things.
Write down three plans for each big goal and action them. If they don’t work, put a line through them and try something else. Rinse and repeat until something works and then learn from what didn’t work.
Remember your wins
Write down your big wins and how you achieved them with as much detail as you can. This is incredibly important for creating your own playbook of winning strategies. Starting a new project and getting stuck on how to approach it? Read back through a previous game plan and the smallest detail might be the key to getting it across the line.
Cocktail (and dreams) napkin ideas
Some of the biggest and most successful companies, services and products of all time started off as doodles and scribbles on a cocktail napkin. Make your journal a playground for spur of the moment ideas that could end up as your greatest success. Write it down and think on it, then add to it some more and over time you might find that you’ve built your next passion project.
Self reflection is key
Looking in on yourself and your emotions can be a very hard thing to do, but can also be humbling and empowering at the same time. A journal is priceless for conveying how your own head space and emotional reactions change when dealing with specific stresses. Having a thorough understanding of your own biases, what triggers you and how you react during stressful periods can help you flourish within the workplace and become an incredibly valuable asset to your team when under pressure.
Make your own rules
The toughest aspect most find when starting a journal is exactly that; starting it. As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Start small and build on it, and soon you’ll find it becomes habitual.
Even if it’s the notes section of your phone, an app or a classic paper journal with a nice pen, do whichever method works best for you and one that you’ll invest in. We guarantee that over time, there is no doubt that you will grow, both professionally and personally.
If you’ve got an interview coming up and want tips and advice to help you ace it, IDEX is perfectly placed to help. We’ve put together a guide with all our interview tips and tricks to help you land your next job.
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