Sometimes our anxiety and negative thoughts can be managed or changed by recording our feelings about the past, present, and future, tangibly.
It's funny how my material crisscrosses. This tool came to mind while I was working on something that felt totally unrelated, and it turned out to be exactly related.
The Seventh Hart Habit: Show
This tool comes from my seventh Hart Habit, which is Show. I've walked you through one Hart Habit in each of these posts, and you can see the whole framework laid out on the Hart Habits Framework page.
Now let's talk about how recording or documenting and showing plays into our anxiety and negative thinking, and how doing it well can help heal those things within us.
How It Works
Neuroscience tells us that when we engage our brain in hearing, thinking, and seeing something intentionally, we can teach it to experience a new or different reality. When we record our vision for our lives in a visual (or other) format, our brain receives it in new ways and gets to work making it happen with us.
We're not limited to sending ourselves messages through the words we say and the thoughts we consciously choose. With our visuals and other senses, we can show our brain what we want to be true.
What to Record
Record anything you:
Currently feel, hear, see, or sense in some way. Have felt, heard, seen, or sensed in the past. Want to feel, hear, see, or sense in the future.
It doesn't matter which senses are engaged for you. If you're feeling it or thinking it, the goal is to get it out of your mind and body, and onto some kind of medium.
How to Record
You could use a paintbrush and canvas, sculpting clay, a nail on a rock, a Cricut, a spreadsheet, a database, or pen and paper. You could use a video camera or a microphone too. There are a million ways to record what you're feeling, hearing, seeing, sensing, or wanting.
The important thing is getting it out of your brain and body, and making it tangible. Engineers and architects build scale models. Consultants write forecast reports. Gardeners draw plans, then grow whatever the earth lets them, depending on the care they've given the process. Audio and video are two of my personal favorites.
What Else to Record
The next thing to record is your progress on goals. If the first thing you recorded was a vision, now it's time to document your progress toward it.
There's no right or wrong way, but generally, working backward from the end goal helps you figure out the smaller steps required and gives a realistic timeline for getting there.
Document your progress on each of those smaller steps, and track the markers that actually tell the story. A great physical therapist writes down every detail of your work together: this many reps, at this weight, on this date, at this time. As you get stronger, you'll see the weight drop and the range of motion improve. Documenting the process helps you know what you've accomplished and where you are on the journey.
The essential third part is to celebrate what you've accomplished.
What to Do With the Records
Once you've recorded your progress and hit a goal, you can share your portfolio of accomplishments. That's not bragging, it's reporting. It tells the story of what you've actually done.
Share it with your boss, your family, your clients, your friends, or just yourself. However you use it, it's a real way to empower and uplift yourself. Sharing it with others can build your credibility, your rates, your brand recognition, and ultimately, it can tell your story for you, if you want it to. It's an objective testimonial to how awesome you are.
If you keep practicing this Habit, you'll get the recognition you deserve more often. You won't be overlooked for credit that belongs to you, because your records will show the truth.
This Is Reporting, Not Bragging
As you start doing this, you might feel resistance, because you've been taught it's bad to brag. Consider this reporting, not bragging. Bragging usually means inflating a story or your importance in it, which is ultimately built on lying. This is about keeping and sharing truthful data, in whatever format actually fits.
Anything you create is data. It doesn't have to be spreadsheets and charts. A series of paintings made while you moved through a life transformation can tell a powerful story that opens new doors. A series of live videos on Instagram could become the thing that launches your next chapter.
Journaling is a powerful way to record what we're thinking and feeling, but I've also made journal entries as coloring pages, painted with acrylic pens, watercolors, or colored pencils. Those pages had messages for me I can still feel.
When you keep this kind of record consistently, people perceive you as humble, not as a braggart. They see what you've put out and think, this is great, and I bet there's even more they've done. It lets them celebrate your accomplishments with you, and celebrate their own too.
In Conclusion
Record. Record your thoughts and vision of the past, present, and future. Record your progress. Then Show those records to the folks who deserve or need to see them. You deserve to be celebrated.
Question of the day: How do you document your thoughts, vision, and feelings about the past, present, and future?