The Mindful Place of Calm by A. Paul Miller

Author:A. Paul Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CVR12202018;CVR01102019;mindful place of calm;paul miller;mindfulness;meditation;calm;relaxation;place of calm;the place of calm;being calm;how to be calm;how to be mindful
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2019-09-25T20:34:56+00:00

Journaling to Track and Observe Your Progress

To create a deeper or new self-awareness, especially when setting SMART goals, it is important to track your progress so that you can see the change in writing. Seeing our progress is vital when making changes within ourselves; if we don’t take the time to notice even the slightest changes, we may lose our fortitude and tenacity to keep going, particularly at the beginning of our path toward personal change.

When I began my journey to make personal changes, I used a small journal to write down my goal for the day or for the week. I also wrote about my successes and the moments when I did not do as well as I had hoped. It is very important not to be self critical if you find that you were not as successful with your SMART goal as you would have liked. Remember changing who you are is not easy, there are many millions of people who do not have your courage for change. Also, I can’t emphasize this enough—baby steps. Start with very small goals and then work up to the bigger ones. I found this process encouraging and useful in tweaking my goals as needed.

This is the template I defined for what I wanted to work on. It is split into two parts. The first part describes how the situation would normally happen without the Meditative Feeling and the second part using the Meditative Feeling. Within each of those two parts are a few subsections I will describe now. I would write a very brief description (emphasis on brief as this would help me to get clarity on what to write) for each of the following subsections.

• Part 1: what was the situation, my typical behavior, my typical thoughts, my typical feelings, the other person’s behavior (if someone else is involved).

• Part 2: my new thoughts, my new behavior, the other person’s new behavior, how I felt with respect to the outcome.

Remember, the second part is the description after creating the Wedge of Awareness during the situation.

I hope you will find the template useful as you get started with journaling your experiences. Please modify it as you see fit to personalize your journal.

Start by writing your SMART goals for the day and the week in your journal, and then use the template above to journal your experiences. Just write a few words for each category so that this doesn’t become a time-consuming task. You don’t want to be stressed about getting this done. However, try to be disciplined about writing in your journal regularly. In my practice, people always appreciate and grow from writing down their experiences.

When journaling, remember to remain objective about your experience, especially a difficult one in which you wish that you had behaved differently. Always, search for the balance between beating yourself up emotionally and giving yourself so much latitude that you never have to make any real progress.

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