Tuesday, August 27, 2019

How Jewish Journaling Can Help with Achieving Your Goals

Jewish Junk Journal for Elul

How Journaling Can Help with Achieving Your Goals

Journaling can help you achieve your goals because it will remind you to think about them, consider the why and how, and delve deeper into the situation so that you can examine all sides of it. It's well established that journaling can help us achieve our goals.

* It Reminds You to Write Down Your Goals – When you start a journal, it basically is a way to force yourself to document your goals. Whether you write them down on paper or you use technology to get it all down doesn’t matter. Once they’re written, they are ready to tackle.

* It Makes You Consider Why and How – As you enter data into your journal, you’ll be forced to face the why and how of your goal. This is especially true if you write down a goal and focus on it in your journal. Journaling is a great way to hold yourself accountable. Staring at the page, I know I must face my thoughts and feelings in order to learn and grow.

* It Enables You to Examine the Opportunities and Threats – When you are focused on goal making with your journal, you’ll also explore opportunities and threats coming your way due to your goals. It helps you avoid roadblocks in advance by turning threats into opportunities whenever possible.

* It Makes You Develop Steps for Success Based on Your Goals – When you see it written down, you’ll want to notice and pull out any steps you’ve developed in your journal and put them in your calendar for scheduling. This really works, especially if you put a calendar right inside your junk journal.

* It Helps You Improve Goal Setting and Achievement – Each time you intentionally set goals, define steps to achieve the goals and perform them, you are setting yourself up for success. Seeing your goals and seeing the path to achieve them is how we improve our skills. 

* It Provides Accountability – Even if no one else is reading your journal, a private journal can help you become accountable to yourself. If you develop the habit of looking at your journal each day and writing in it, drawing in it or adding a piece each day, it’ll work for you. Junk journaling is great for helping you become more accountable. 

* It Provides a Permanent Record – Keeping a lovely record of the things you’ve done in your life, whether it’s personal or work, is a beautiful thing. Hardly anyone has a perfect memory, so you’ll maintain the lessons you've learned and enjoy the memories of your personal growth.

* It May Be Inspirational – Depending on the nature of your journal, you might even be able to take the artwork and the information inside and compile it into a published book for others to read. You could inspire others, or possibly teach others from the steps you've taken on your junk journal journey.

Most of all, I inspire myself! I take responsibility for my own inspiration and motivation by creating my Jewish junk journal pages daily.

While journaling is an excellent way to work toward achieving all your goals, it will also help you make better goals because the process of entering facts and feelings in your journal will cause you to see them in a more logical way, which is useful. 

Combine your Jewish journaling with Jewish kindness toward 
yourself and you'll have something special. I am going to talk about kindness here because it's one of my personal goals. 




There are two parts to my focus on kindness, which are 1) kindness to myself, and 2) kindness to others. There's a reason I put myself first, and it's not selfish at all. It's because I must be kind to myself first in order to be available and open to offer kindness to others.

Many of us are taught that behind every smile there is an ulterior motive, and we are suspicious and skeptical of others who are kind to us, but we can change.

Kindness does not equal weakness. And being kind to ourselves does not equal selfishness.

On the contrary, it takes strength and courage to practice to be kind to the person in the mirror.

When we're kind to ourselves it makes a difference in our lives, and in some ways we can see the difference it makes.

Jewish kindness, which is God's lovingkindness reflected through us, can help us succeed in many ways:

Kindness increases confidence. Studies show that kindness increases our self-worth and our productivity, meaning the kindness we extend toward ourselves as well as toward others.


Kindness creates a ripple effect. Kindness is contagious, fostering more kindness in our lives and the lives of others.

Kindness evokes a sense of trust, in ourselves and in others.

Studies show that leaders who are kind and project warmth are more effective than those who lead by being tough. Jewish leaders know the power of a mitzvah, a good deed, and of lovingkindness, known as chesed.

Kindness bridges gaps between people. It can reach across barriers in language, gender, locality, religion and anything else that causes people to miscommunicate. We all need kindness to get along in this world now.


Kindness is the secret to a successful and fulfilling life. Jewish kindness starts with kindness to the person in the mirror, and extends out to the people in our home, and in our community and our world.

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