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Most people want to improve themselves as much as possible. Believe it or not, you can do this on your own with just a notebook or computer and the willingness to open your mind to a few new techniques. For you see, journaling is one simple, but extremely effective way to gain more satisfaction on your journey to higher awareness and self-empowerment.

First of all, it is important to understand the difference between regular journaling and intentional journaling. As you probably know, journaling in general usually means recording what happened to you during a given period, your thoughts and feelings about it, your hopes and dreams, sketches, poems, lists, and anecdotes from your life.

Intentional journaling often includes these things, too, but focuses on a specific topic for each entry. Thus, the name intentional journaling. Before beginning, you pose a question, problem, or situation to your subconscious mind and then write down or journal its responses. These entries are very focused and have endless benefits.

According to John Robson, a certified journaling facilitator and the founder of HigherAwareness.com, some of the 100 benefits of intentional journaling are:
Awareness and authenticity
Balance
Clarity, commitment and creativity
Decision-making ability
Expansion and empowerment
Focus, fun
Healing and harmony
Intuition, insights, imagination and inspiration
Joy
Knowledge of self, reality, truth
Manifestations, motivation and meaning
Peace of mind, planning, purpose
Quality of life
Results, release, relaxation and revelations
Understanding
Values
Wisdom and wholeness

To make intentional journaling easier, there are specific techniques you can use to access any and all information in your subconscious mind. These are called journaling tools, and two of the most popular ones are Smart Questions and List-making. These will be explored below.

Before learning about these tools, however, you need to understand that anything and everything you want or need to know is already in your subconscious mind. Everything! You just need to access it. When you do, you will have every answer, each solution, the wisdom, knowledge, and all the abundance you could ever need. You can use Smart Questions and/or List-making any time to tap into the vast stores of information in your subconscious.

Smart Questions--Statements and questions evoke different responses from your subconscious mind. Statements are perceived as fact and use the left brain, while questions create more outside the box, intuitive, and creative responses. They, in turn, use the right brain, where intuition, creativity, spiritual matters, and more abstract thinking come from.

However, you cannot just ask any old question and journal on it. Instead, it should be a Smart Question, one that will evoke a meaningful response. For example, Do I love myself? is not a Smart Question, but How can I love myself more? is, because it produces ways to obtain the self love you are looking for.

Other examples of Smart Questions include:
How can I create more free time?
How can I discover my life purpose?
What can I do to express self love?
Where is the best place for me to be alone to think or meditate?
Who do I relate to best?
Who could be my mentor?
What kind of work would be most fulfilling for me?
What do I have trouble accepting about myself?

Making up your own questions is extremely effective, because they reflect what you want and need most. Simply be sure they can produce multiple answers and are not limiting in the way you phrase them. Limited questions will work, but you will not gain as much insight from those.

Before writing down the answers that come to you, ask the question three times to drill it into your subconscious mind. Then, do not worry about what comes; just write what your mind throws at you without analyzing it. Later, you will be surprised at the responses and ideas you have generated in only a short time.

List-making--This is similar to Smart Questions, because it starts with a question. For instance, you have recently discovered a business that's new to you, and you want to explore it more deeply. Whether you know a lot about it or not, you can use list-making to find out more information. Set a minimum number of responses; then, pose your question and start writing quickly. Duplicates are ok. Your list might look something like this:

What can I learn about this new business?
At least 5 responses required.
Earning potential
Type of product
Marketing opportunities
Demand for product
Profit margin
Initial investment

When your list is finished, group the responses into categories. In this case, we could use financial considerations, marketing, and product information.

Then, especially for a longer list, prioritize the responses in each category, putting the ones you want to learn about most at the top. Finally, start researching the business. List-making takes the pressure off, organizes your knowledge, keeps you from becoming overwelmed, and keeps the list up-to-date as you add new items and re-prioritize the list. In this case it also gives you an informal study of the business.

With Smart Questions and List-making alone, you can gain greater insight into your relationships, life purpose, business, education, interests, developing your intuition, creativity, and so much more! You can use them in any and all areas of your life for even more success and abundance. If you practice them for a few weeks, you will see life-changing results: guaranteed!

For more journaling tools, check out the e-book Go Deeper.... Reach Higher... Journaling for Self-empowerment. It was written by John Robson, a certified journaling facilitator, and offers 40 tools like these along with exercises to encourage your journaling practice. You can find the e-book at:
http://tinyurl.com/ylamhp