Journaling as Reflective Practice

Written by Ray Jorgensen, PhD

Journaling as Reflective Practice As leaders of living systems, the ability to reflect is one of the most important disciplines to develop. Over the years we have found that, at particularly difficult times in life, when confused and disheartened, and times of exhilaration when life is filled with joy and happiness, the journaling practice helps center us and provides a space for reflection and learning. The Internet is filled with journaling advice, and journaling workshops abound. Most journaling teachers describe different kinds of writing such as “daily log,” “period log,” “dream log,” “dialogues.” Regardless of the style of writing you choose to practice, the most significant part of journaling is that it’s yours–to be listened to by you without comment or judgment, received, not analyzed. Journaling provides disciplined attention to your own experience and your own words, allowing you to absorb your own experience and take it seriously. Extremely difficult situations with enormous emotion attached can unfold in your journal, to be thought through from what might become a completely new perspective. You can later review your responses to situations in privacy without quick judgment from someone else. Journaling allows you to cope with significant events in your leadership role and offers a refuge to work on other things unfolding in your life. Journaling will show you that understanding is really more important than critiquing. The more practice you put into this work, the more you will deepen opportunities for understanding self and others. Many leaders enjoying this writing practice describe their reflections as stepping-stones to deeper understanding of the professional practice patterns. Following the advice of Peter Senge, remember: patterns are not random. When repetitive leadership responses appear in our writing, we should look for the underlying mental models and structures causing the pattern. This becomes a superior way to reflect on the source of our behavior, coming to see what it is that defines us as a leader. Although encouragement for a writing practice needs little additional support, sometimes the journal gets lost in the process of leading. When you notice that you’ve stopped, commit to writing this afternoon. It’s just that simple. The most common explanation for setting aside the journal is usually time: Many leaders with challenging careers have households with kids, cats, dogs, aging parents and responsibility for may people and things. There just doesn’t seem time to keep a journal. But leaders tell us that they are ready to occasionally set the journal aside for the sake of time only after they have internalized the discipline of personal reflection. Reflecting as a practitioner will serve you well as a leader and as a woman or a man.