Learn | Self Discover and Personal Development Through Writing

Attended a wellness talk because it involves writing, and found it brought positive impact to myself. As stated on the title of this post, the talk is about self-discovery and personal development, writing is just one of the tools for it. Several writing techniques have been shared by the speakers during the session including:

1. Making a list
2. Catharsis/Free writing
3. Reflection/Self-observation
4. Self Affirmation
5. Sketchnote

Making a List

Making a list calms us down in the cluttered stuffs waiting to be done wandering inside our brain. The process is pretty simple: Sit down, grab whatever undone stuff out of your mind, and put them into a list. This will effectively ease workload for your brain and free you from the stress of you might miss some of the item undone. In addition, splitting the master list into more specific steps makes you be more assured by the list you made, and make you believe in the list more. Ah yes, make it a good habit to list something down immediately before you forget.

Example:

• Team meeting in the morning
• Check meeting agenda
• Compile notes into the week's todo list
• Examine hardware, label, and compile a list
• Labeling
• Installation
• Testing
• Compile hardware list
• Email report

Catharsis/Free Writing

This is like any simple one-liner Facebook status we always put on our status update. It doesn't need to mean anything, but Facebook is not the place for it. We all find that out the day some nasty or sarcastic comment were left below your status. So it is highly recommended to do the catharsis or free writing somewhere isn't public.

Example:

• I want to drink a cup of coffee now.
• I missed my dog.

Reflection/Self-observation

Write down something just happened to you that makes you couldn't stop thinking about. Start from a single line, then rewrite the story, over and over again, until the story sounds right and feels right.

Example:

Version 1: My friend had a bad day.

Version 2: My friend had a bad day, I felt sorry about it.

Version 3: My friend had a bad day. When she told me about it, I can't really help. I felt sorry about it.

Version 4: My friend had a bad day. When she told me about it, I can't really help. I felt sorry about it. I've made myself a good listener.

Self Affirmation

This one is more like the inspirational quotes, but you will write your own. 

Example:

I think I'm gonna start writing again.

Sketchnote

Just draw whatever you feels like on a piece of paper and post it on the wall. To be honest, sketchnote doesn't work for myself.