The habit that changed my life in 2023
I'm saying this with 0% exaggeration.
It’s 2024.
The internet is full of recounts of “life-changing” experiences & habits, but most of them turn out to be just clickbait.
I chose my words carefully for the title of this article and it is with 0% exaggeration that I say: there is one habit that I took up in 2023. that resulted in the realization that I want to change industries, close down my company, and do something about my pretty sedentary lifestyle. Thanks to it, I identified a new industry to pivot to (that I had zero previous experience in), enrolled in a course about it, lost ~15 kg, and overall began to enjoy life more.
I hinted at it in a few earlier articles, but today we’re diving deep into it.
And some of you might roll your eyes at me because it’s a pretty simple habit: journaling.
Specifically, guided journaling based on the prompts in the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.
You see, I spent the majority of June ‘23 thinking about different ways how I could change my offer as a solopreneur. I knew that what I was doing was not working - I was exhausted, my income was irregular, and I felt like I wasn’t using my full potential nor bringing myself closer to my goals in terms of lifestyle and habits. I thought that writing and self-publishing a book would fix it and serve as a new element of an offer that my business was thirsting for.
Enter: “The Artist’s Way”, the book which is actually a 12-week guided journaling practice that many a content creator have said was the direct cause of their unbound creativity, finished manuscripts, and a creative life well lived.
The main practice consists of writing 3 full pages of whatever’s on your mind as soon as you wake up, day after day, for 12 weeks. (There are some other tasks too, but I don’t consider them the key factor in my change because I’d do them sporadically.)
I bought the book on Tuesday. Started journaling on Wednesday.
On Friday, I realized that what I want is not a new offer for my business. It’s to close down that business.
I came to guided journaling for assistance with a single project.
What I got was a life reevaluation and a newly awakened drive to turn my whole life upside down.
I have no idea how the magic of journaling works, but I have a theory:
You wake up, day after day, and write about what’s on your mind. Your dreams, hopes, concerns.
On the first day, you write about that aspect of your current job that saps the life out of you. On the second, you write about it again. On the third day, you’re tired of wasting paper on the things you already covered and decide to do something about what troubles you in order not to have to write about it ever again.
Maybe journaling works because it makes you get bored with the aspects of your life that you’re not satisfied with. In my case, it definitely increased the friction between what I dislike and where I’d like to be and propelled me towards action.
Or maybe it works because, in your head, different thoughts seem to carry the same weight but when you put them on paper, somewhere outside of your body, it becomes much clearer which things matter more than others. It’s like getting the opportunity to look at yourself from a new angle while still keeping the conversation between you and yourself.
Oh, another thing it’s good for: proving to yourself that you’re a consistent person. To journal for 12 weeks straight means to write three pages a day for 84 days. At first, I wasn’t sure I’d make it. But I kept telling myself: “Just focus on tomorrow’s pages and everything else will take care of itself”. On days when I held workshops, I’d wake up at 5 AM to make sure I had enough time to write. On days when I was traveling for work, I’d write them with a shaky hand while on a moving bus. On days when I was tired and felt like sleeping in and not doing anything, I’d still write them. This gives you food for other endeavors. You tell yourself: “Sure, I can be diligent with project X. I’ve been writing every morning for 3/5/8/12 weeks!”.
I’m looking forward to July and being able to read my first journal entries and compare them to the summer of 2024.
Maybe the main thing that the 12-week guided journaling practice has shown me is that so much can change in a matter of days and weeks rather than years.
Time surely is a peculiar thing.
So if the recounts of my experience tickled your curiosity, pick up a pretty notebook and give guided journaling a go - I enjoyed “The Artist’s Way” but if you’d like to experiment with something else, there are dozens of books filled with journaling prompts on various subjects.
I’ve had clients and friends whom I’ve told this story to reach out with so many revelations of their own, which were a direct result of them doing daily guided journaling practice. (Oh, and some of them also became better at social media content creation. Turns out, when you begin to write daily, it kinda spills from the notebook across all other platforms.)
Journaling is not always comfortable and some unpleasant thoughts may rise to the surface. There are days when you feel like throwing the notebook into the toilet Ginny Wesley style rather than writing three new pages. But it’s a great reality check for where you are today and might be a beautiful trip down memory lane tomorrow (yes, I’ll be keeping the filled notebooks!).
Happy writing!
Your neighborly scribbler,
Andjela
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Welcome to the Career Pivot Diaries where I chronicle my journey from sustainability communications to QA testing! This is where we’ll cover all things career change, such as going from entrepreneurship to 9-to-5, exploring new professional identities, and *finally* updating that dusty CV. Most importantly, we’ll explore how to see ourselves as more than our work and find a sense of safety in choosing a new path while allowing room for creative play.
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