When You Want to Make Progress

I love to journal.

I start a majority of my days with journal writing. I use a method I learned in an excellent book titled, The Artist’s Way. The author, Julia Cameron, offers something she calls, “Morning Pages.”

In a nutshell, it’s a Stream of Consciousness style of writing. Stated more simply, you write what you’re thinking. One thought, then the next and the next.

This means that sometimes I write, “Wow, it’s a beautiful morning,” “It smells like rain,” or “Dang, it was difficult to get up this morning. Not a lot of meat there. I write it anyway.

It may also mean I write, “I’m recognizing fear when I think about doing that,” whatever “that” happens to be in the moment. These types of things are more insightful and foster my personal growth.

Most days it’s some combination of the two.

I love my days when I dive deep and discover a meaningful insight. A “revelation” my husband would call it.

But I never know at the beginning which one I will experience that day.

Until I write.

I must begin the process of writing, and keep writing, in order to discover if it will be a day of “beautiful morning” and “rain” or one of deeper, more meaningful insights.

Oftentimes in life, we may want to know how something is going to turn out before we start the process or take any steps. We may ask ourselves questions like,

• Will this work?

• Is this the answer I’m looking for?

• Will doing this thing create the results I desire?

But the only way to know the answer is to start. Take some steps, assess, revise, take more steps.

There will be times you’ll find it’s best to stop and change your path.

Other times, you’ll discover, “This is exactly what I’ve been searching for.”

The unfortunate truth you may not want to accept is this: You won’t know until you try.

Truthfully, there are many mornings I wonder, “Why am I even writing today?”

Then suddenly my hand is gliding across the page and words are flowing. And then, boom, there it is. The exact insight I need.

An insight that may have gotten away had I not started.

That’s why I write.

Every day.