Interested in continuing your professional development, consider the following. Journaling for Professional Development-Developing Yourself Through Reflection by Mind Tools Club, which offers the following advice.
- Journaling is making a record of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences on a regular basis. This record needs be documented, audio or video because the key is being able to review it regularly so you benefit from your experiences.
- With the hectic pace of life it is easy to “move on” and not realize the lessons you are presented with daily
- Journaling’s biggest benefit is the opportunity to reflect on your experiences and learnings because they help you to
- Identify mistakes you have made and reflect on how to avoid them in the future
- Review your learnings and thus keep the information fresh in your mind
- Develop your critical thinking and problem solving skills
- Become more self aware and emotionally mature
- Develop your communication skills because of having to organize your thoughts
- Deal with negative things because once expressed they can be forgotten
- Monitor your progress towards your goals
- What would you like to do that you haven’t yet
- Make it a habit by doing it at the same time each day perhaps first thing, last thing or at lunch or a break.
- Pace yourself as you are not writing a novel but just recording your thoughts and feelings and perhaps limit it to 5-10 minutes
- Reflect (think critically) on your experiences by considering the following questions
- What has happened since you last journaled
- What have you learned since your last entry
- What mistakes have you made recently
- What difficult or painful events have occurred
- If you could repeat a recent event what would you do differently
- Be honest as this is only for your use
- Focus on positives and negatives
- No matter how bad a day you have had try and find one positive thing
- Consider keeping a Success/Victory log as it easy to lose track of what you are accomplishing
- Keep your goals in mind and record your progress as a way of keeping yourself focused
- In considering how to journal use the following ideas
- Decide on a format such as
- Paper-many people find that the physical act of “putting pen to paper” encourages reflection as it is slow and measured
- Electronic, either documents, audio or video
- Keeping it simple in the beginning is wise
Please share your experiences/thoughts
#PharmacyPracticeManagers #PharmacyStudents #PharmacyLeadership #NewPractitioners #ResidencyProgramDirector #Resident