If you’re like the rest of us, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be the best in your business.
Pressure to take care of your family’s every need.
Pressure to be the best at whatever your thing is.
But why not take a break from all that pressure, and journal yourself some love?
Before you do one more thing towards your freelance writing business, sit down and write a love letter…to yourself.
We all journal in different ways, but this may be one time when you’ll want to grab a paper journal, a pen or pencil and find a quiet spot that will allow you to reflect.
Bring your favorite cup of coffee or tea or what have you, put your butt in a chair and pour out your heart to yourself.
Imagine you’re writing your letter to someone you really care about.
Just put you in their place.
After all, you do love you…right?
• Tell yourself about your failures and successes and how you felt at each turn.
• Talk about how you successfully landed your first client. How did it feel?
• Talk about how you successfully handled your first rejection.
How did you pick yourself up from that? (This doesn’t necessarily have to be related to writing. But I challenge you to turn how you bounced back from that first non-writing related rejection, into a way to hold yourself up when your writing is rejected.)
• Looking back over your life, what do you consider your greatest achievement?
How has that one event or occasion made you a better person? A better writer?
• Who has been the greatest influence in your life. Psst…this person doesn’t have to be a writer or in the industry.
• Pull out old pictures from your favorite trip and journal about those memories.
Make sure you’re in those pictures somewhere.
Where were you, who were you with, and how were you feeling?
The whole point of this exercise is to: 1) accept your failures, and, 2) not only move past them but to really show yourself that you are strong and special just the way you are.
We spend so much time beating ourselves up and thinking that we’re not good enough.
It’s time to put all that aside in order to allow ourselves to move forward.
How will this help your writing?
By the time you’re finished, you may have a story that you can polish and sell. (Something else you can celebrate later in your self journal.)
At the very least, you’ll have several ideas you can turn into stories.
Maybe you’ll even have the beginnings of your memoir.
You never know how far your self journal will take you.
About Patricia Bumpass
Patricia (Pat) Bumpass (www.patriciabumpass.com) is a North Carolina-based freelance writer. She writes a weekly blog for her current employer while building her freelance writing business. Pat enjoys writing and has journaled since she was a teenager. She lives with her 17-year-old son who is blessed with Autism.
Read this article to learn how to use journaling to become a better writer.
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