The Power of Writing Things Down

— Have you ever struggled deciding what to do when having to choose between multiple options?
— Have you ever felt insecure because of what people might criticize about you?
— Have you ever wanted to help and empathize with people but you don’t know how?
— Have you ever wanted to track your goals and be able to identify what is impeding you from achieving them?
— Have you ever spent days or even weeks trying to get something out of your mind?
— Have you ever doubt of a decision you have taken in the past after thinking about it months later?

These questions, which seem to not show any correlation between them at all, contemplate situations that I am sure you feel identified with at least one of them. Consequently, my desire to share, based on my short experience, how by writing things down on a paper or by pressing multiple times the keyboard of my laptop have helped me figure out how to mitigate and avoid these uncomfortable situations, which by any means where targeted to be diminished when I started writing things coming out of my complicated mind.

Then you might wonder — “Why did you start putting things down on a paper if you did not know the benefits?”—I will save the answer for later but the truth is I did not wake up one day knowing that writing will translate into so many benefits as I realize nowadays. On the contrary, I always considered writing to be an artistic skill, which I still believe it is, nevertheless, what I didn’t know was its hidden potential on people that didn’t make a living out of this art.
Couldn’t I be more wrong? No doubt about it.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

— Louis L’Amour

So lets get to the point, the power of writing things down…

Taking better Decisions — Pros VS Cons

We go through a common day making decisions, some more complicated than others. Daily decisions like whether going to workout or joining your friends at a bar; and sometimes more challenging decisions like whether deciding to move to another country because of a job offer or declining it. The former are decisions that we face on a daily basis, therefore, we are pretty much on an autopilot mode whenever we select which option to take. On the other hand, the latter is an example of a more complicated situation. These difficult decisions are not simple to visualize in our minds, therefore, defining which option is the best scenario can be overwhelming, stressful, and, even worst, inaccurate.

These challenging situations were the main reason why I started putting things down on a paper. Listing Pros and Cons of multiple scenarios have given me a better idea of the consequences when deciding which option to take between series of alternatives. I am aware this technique is not rocket science but I am sure we all have struggled overthinking what to do while all the information is swirling in our heads. However, even though putting things on a balance of Pros and Cons might not tell you explicitly the answer that you should aim for, it will show you enough pieces of the puzzle so based on that one can take the best decision possible with the most information available.

Recommendation: When doing list of Pros and Cons, do not feel overwhelmed if you can’t immediately think of many Pros/Cons in order to facilitate the decision making. When doing this I have realized that it will take a couple of days in order to let the brain analyze the whole situation and generate —at random moments — more Pros and Cons.
Let me explain this by asking you, have you ever been doing something and out of nowhere a random thought have came to your mind making you think “ Wow, I didn’t think about this, I have to remember this later” and then you completely forgot about it?, I am sure your subconscious has tricked you as it has done it to me. Thus, the importance of writing down the Pros and Cons out of your mind as they come in.

Expose yourself

I consider that one of the many flaws that I have and that I have been working out recently is to try to not project myself as a flawless creature that needs to be seen as perfect by the people surrounding me. I have realized that while doing this the amount of energy spent is absurd and at the end it leads to the same conclusion — I am not perfect and nobody is!!! —

Therefore, I decided that one way to even expose myself to a higher degree was to write articles about things — controversial topics, motivational tools, habits adopted — so then share them in order to uncover into a more transparent version of myself. So far it has been a great experience, I have not only learnt to accept more objectively the critics from people but also it has allowed me to get to know myself better in many ways. However, I would like to avoid the notion that in order to expose yourself you need to post articles in a social network, I have selected this way since there are other reasons that are mentioned below.

Giving back

As specified previously, one of the purposes of why I decided to start writing articles was in order to share things I have acquired throughout my short life — habits, skills, learnings absorbed from books and podcasts, lessons given by family, professors, bosses, friends, as well as lessons learned by myself through situations faced in the past — These learnings have not only helped me to overcome challenging moments but more important they have made me a better person in many senses.

I would like to comment that by doing this — sharing what I have learned — I do not intend to display myself as a person that has everything figured out — because I am way far from that point — . On the contrary, the reason I am sharing my learnings is to help people that might be going through tough situations as I did — and as I still am — , then, more importantly, to connect with people through empathy. I have realized that whenever a person is going through a tough patch in life and somebody shared a similar experience, it makes the person in distress to feel like he/she is not alone, consequently, giving the person strength and hope that obstacles can be overcome.

Developing a skill

I not only considered writing to be one of my weaknesses whenever an essay was required to be delivered in any of the courses taken during college but also as one of those skills — at least for me as an engineer — that I didn’t worry to improve since I was probably never going to use it during my professional career.
Moreover, although there are multiple ways to expose yourself, from my personal perspective, including writing as part of my routine was not only going to provoke criticism, help people, and clarify my thoughts but also was going to help me improve a skill.

One can argue that improving an skill that you are not required to use on a daily basis could be traduced as a waste of time since it could be invested to enhance a skill that you actually need. However, adopting this approach towards life could result monotonous and somehow boring. Regardless if we are referring to writing, speaking a new language, practicing yoga, we would never know what are the benefits of trying something new until we have actually tried it.
In my short experience, learning progressively to put my thoughts on a paper has allowed me to express gratitude for the things I used to take for granted, track the progress of goals, and identify the roadblocks that are not allowing to achieve some of those targets. Besides these benefits, I have also noticed progress on things I didn’t know writing was going to have repercussion on, like improving the way I express things when talking to friends, communicating ideas to coworkers or presenting to an unknown audience.

Let the monkey out of the cage

I have adopted this expression from a book — Tools of Titans — to make reference to the action of writing/typing down whatever is bothering you or causing you stress — relationships, work, health, goals, finances— .The benefits can be experienced as soon as everything have been let out of your head, allowing you then to perceive things clearer and not as complicated as they seemed to be inside your mind.

The way I let the monkey out of the cage is by writing as soon as I wake up as well as before going to sleep, by doing this I ensure that whatever was bothering me during the sunrise is not longer causing me stress — or at least way less — by the end of the day. I have found that whenever I skip this process in the morning, I don’t have my ideas and goals as organized as well as when I put my thoughts on a paper. Consequently, not clarifying my ideas as soon as I wake up results on letting the monkey spend the whole day jolting the cage — my head — , and even worst not letting me being productive to overcome whatever is bothering me.

To remember the reason why a decision was taken

When we take decisions we are on a hot state where we assume that our brain will keep such effusive determination throughout time. Instead, it has happened multiple times where I found myself confused months later of taking a decision, wondering how did I reach to that conclusion. The plain fact is that time will make our determination dissipate, taking us back to a cool state that progressively tend to forget the sum of the factors that made us take that decision. Hence, writing — during hot state — all the pieces that played a role in decisions that you struggled days or even weeks to take, will allow you in the future to revise your motives just in case you question yourself about the choices taken in the past .

“Write what should not be forgotten.”
― Isabel Allende

Regardless if you felt identified with all, some, or none of these situations, I still hope you feel at least a tiny sense of encouragement and curiosity to write, either if it is by emulating one of the usage that I give to writing or if you figure out any other motive where you feel it will provide you benefits.
Personally, I didn’t realize the unclearness of my thoughts and feelings until I finally started letting them out, which is something you might be “suffering” without actually being aware of it. I even was skeptic to the benefits of writing after I started doing it, nevertheless, this didn’t last long since I progressively started to understand situations better. Writing has allowed me to put ideas in a better logical order when they are in front of me rather that inside of my mind.

To conclude, without doubt incorporating writing as part of my daily routine has been one of the most beneficial changes in my life. It is countless the amount of psychological benefits — gratitude, handling hard times, communicating better, motivation, creativity, and many more — that I have enjoyed since the first days I started doing this as a habit. Thus, the reason of sharing my experience on how it has helped me in different areas of my life.

“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”

― George Orwell