Journaling for Professional Development: Finding Your Red Threads
One benefit of introspective journaling for professional development is that you get to know yourself better. Knowing yourself and understanding your own desires and needs is the foundation of personal and professional growth. You have to know where you are and understand where you want to go in order to make a plan to get there.
This method, Red Threads Journaling, is particularly suited to understanding yourself, what makes you tick, what is important to you and why. I ran across this particular method in the book Love + Work by Marcus Buckingham. (By the way, I recommend this book to tons of people, have bought multiple copies to give to friends, family, and coworkers, and therefore use an affiliate link to earn commission on it since I genuinely promote it all the time!) As a first step to embarking on a journey of self discovery, I highly recommend reading the book. It’s great for individuals as well as people managers who want to self-manage but also be great people leaders, helping others on their teams or those around them through mentorship, coaching, or encouragement.
In the book, Buckingham walks readers through a series of questions that help an individual notice things that are uniquely important to them. His questions, some paraphrased by me, are below.
When was the last time I:
…lost track of time while caught up in a particular activity?
…instinctively volunteered for something?
…was engaged in something another person had to tear me away from?
…felt like a respected expert or felt completely in control of what I was doing?
…surprised myself by how well I did?
…was singled out for praise?
…was the only person to notice something or speak up about it?
…found myself actively looking forward to work, a task, or activity, or woke up feeling excited about getting started?
…came up with a new way of doing things?
…wanted the activity to never end?
After documenting the answer to the question, follow this up by asking yourself:
Why?
Format your response in the following way…
Because I love it when…
Then, dig a little deeper and find out What Matters? with a series of questions about this thing you’re learning about yourself:
Does it matter who?
Does it matter when?
Does it matter why?
Does it matter what?
Does it matter how?
After processing through and documenting each of these mattering questions, you can condense your learnings into one statement that the book calls a “Red Thread.”
I always find it helpful to see others’ examples of processing through journaling methods like this, so I’m sharing one of mine with you.
When was the last time I … was engaged in something another person had to tear me away from?
When I was creating a project plan for the Thanksgiving menu.
This is an older example, but one I love so much because I learned so much about myself when I used this journaling technique to process through it. Now, let me explain why I took time to process through this one. I have always pushed back hard on being the person to organize events, to take notes in a meeting, or to do any of the other administrative work to support other people’s work. I have never personally felt particularly organized, or when I was, I always felt it was a survival skill, not something I enjoyed.
Also, as a woman, I consciously pay attention to the opportunities for administrative work that are passed out in meetings and like to make sure they don’t always go to a woman. Being a woman in tech, that woman would often be me as I’m not always surrounded by that many other women.
So I definitely noticed when I was taking so much time (and I mean, sooooooo much time) putting together this highly detailed project plan of every recipe, every menu item, each appliance or kitchen space and tool being used, and the order of events to get everything completed over a three-day period (those pie crusts are not going to make, freeze, blind-bake, freeze again, and then bake pies all by themselves, you know).
I was worried! What happened to me?! All of a sudden I’m turning into an organizational MONSTER! I hate organization! So, as you can see, I really needed to dig into this one.
Why? Because I love it when…
I love it when I can take something complex and daunting and create a clear path forward that is simple to execute, that makes sense from the chaos, and that eases the burden of having to figure things out on the fly.
Now that sounded familiar to me! I have done a lot of introspection and somewhat regularly return to my own vision and mission statements for my life and career. One theme that constantly shows up is that I love creating Clarity out of Chaos and that I do this through Vision, Direction, Compassion, and Action. So while I previously worried I was turning into a master organizer (blech), I see now that rather, this falls right in line with my passion of creating clarity out of chaos.
What Matters?
Does it Matter…
Who?
In this particular activity, I was the main stakeholder or recipient of the outcome. But I’ve previously identified for myself that when I invest in things for others, it matters to me that they want what I am offering, that they will take it seriously and use it. I knew that I would use it!
When?
It only matters that it would be completed in time to be useful, but doesn’t matter time of day, day of week, amount of time spent, month, season, etc.
Why?
Yes, it matters that the reason for completing something like this is to take what is messy and seems impossible and to make it clear and simple. To help myself or someone else see a clear path forward and be able to confidently execute.
What?
It doesn’t really matter what the activity is or what for. Something as personal as menu planning or as professional as career development are all relevant, interesting, and worthwhile to me.
How?
I do especially love using visual tools as one way to create clarity, but that is not an exclusive requirement. Given other opportunities to walk someone through creating clarity, the medium or process could be almost anything as long as I feel I have the knowledge and ability to be successful.
So coming out of this exercise, it’s now time to consolidate what I learned into a single statement, or Red Thread, that I can then use to continually craft a future that provides me with opportunities to engage in this type of activity which I love, understanding the nuances of context and reasoning to hone those opportunities to my preferences and my unique abilities to create value.
My Red Thread:
I love it when…
I can take something overwhelming, seemingly impossible, or complex and turn it into something simple with a clear path to execution for someone who will appreciate and use this kind of direction.
Now, you can see how knowing this about myself can help me choose particular tasks, focus on specific activities, and make sure my why is implanted in responsibilities I take on in order to bring myself joy and to feel love and passion for what I do on a regular basis knowing I can contribute my unique value in a place where it will flourish and where it can be appreciated.
Be sure to check out my other methods for Journaling for Professional Development:
