<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=291370464960901&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">

Journaling: Get More out of Yourself

Support

Every single day I learn something new about the power of the Griffin Hill Integrity Sales System. New learning is stimulated by study and experience. The more I adhere to process, plays, metrics and coaching, the more power and influence they bring to my life. It will work for you too.

One way to stimulate new learning and growth is to engage deep mental processing. Deep processing is the exact kind of thought we encourage in our prospects when we ask open-ended questions. Asking and answering meaningful questions is how we get the best critical thinking.

Journaling is a great method to stimulate mental processing, critical thinking and personal evaluation. In a recent blog we cited research suggesting humans are not skilled at individual judgment and personal evaluation. We tend to over-estimate, by about 40%, our individual contribution to a project or team. Journaling helps us get in touch with our inner critic and helps us to make honest assessments of our successes and our need to improve. It keeps us honest… if we ask ourselves the right questions.

Like other forms of evaluation the rules associated with celebration and helpful observations apply to journaling. Start with 3-5 successes. What do you feel good about and why? How has your performance improved? What feedback from customers, peers or supervisors gives you encouragement? What positive patterns are emerging?

Strengthened and encouraged by the answers to questions evoking positive feedback, you are now emotionally armed to ask the difficult questions. What flaw, weakness or shortcoming do I hide from others and even myself? What improvement does my current performance demand? What mistake or error did I make that I must not allow again? In what ways did I display poor judgment? How could I have been more kind, helpful, service oriented? These open-ended questions help us to think critically and honestly. They also lead to ideas for action and improvement.

Opportunities for journaling are well established in the Griffin Hill Integrity Sales System. We sometimes refer to them as evaluate or reflect-and-write. Every coaching session lead by a Griffin Hill coach ends with an invitation to reflect on the coaching session, its content and ideas that were stimulated. We ask you to select 3-5 ideas that resonated with you, that you found to be important, ideas that you don’t want to forget. We ask you to capture these ideas by writing them. In the context of your selections and writing, we ask you to choose an action item. This reflect-and-write activity is one way journaling is used and encouraged in The System.

In addition to the journal writing exercise at the end of each coaching session, there are other opportunities to journal in the Griffin Hill Integrity Sales System. From our Goal Setting Theory Day, we encourage clients to evaluate written goals each day, every week, monthly or quarterly and annually. Evaluating goals calls for self-reflection and writing—journaling. Every sales call follows a protocol of six-steps to insure optimal results. The final of these six steps is evaluation. How did the call go? What went well? Why? Did I adequately prepare? Did I follow the Six-Step Protocol? What one thing do I need to do better in the future?—journaling.

Taking advantage of these and other opportunities to ponder, think and deeply process will accelerate your improvement. Journaling will increase your conscious competence. You will have more wins. You will earn the respect of your peers. You will develop a pattern of growth for every other aspect of your life.

As you reflect-and-write consider the pattern we teach; fact, meaning, feeling and action. Capture the facts by asking good questions and seeking answers. Make sure you lead with the positive. Once you have assembled the facts ask what these facts mean to you? How do they apply? Next, ask how you feel about these facts and their meaning. Armed with facts, meaning and feeling you are prepared to conclude with 1-5 action steps.

I learn new things about the system all the time. The learning is more frequent, more meaningful and more powerful when I intentionally engage deep mental processing stimulated by journaling. This kind of learning leads to power. The power of greater knowledge, skill and action will strengthen you in the same way it strengthens me. It will make you mentally and emotionally stronger. You will become a better person. Your skills will improve and you will experience more success.

Be more conscious in your journaling opportunities—every coaching session, goal evaluations and six step protocols. You will be more prosperous and happier.

Support

How to Think Your Way to the Top

An often overlooked power of the Griffin Hill Integrity Sales System is the way it stimulates deep...

Read more
Support

60 Words to Success

It is important to have a good elevator speech because you only have a few words to grab your...

Read more