8 years to the day I created this blog and began open journaling and reflecting. Now seems right to share a bit about my approach. Originally following a 'call' in mid-2013 to trust the process of expressing not impressing. As it says on the front of my blog site, the purpose of it is:
- Who: I write about me, for me, and my own authentic expression, articulation and development. However, people that have an interest in others' personal journeys and the learning technology specialism, may find the content helpful.
- What: sharing my professional and personal life; experiences, thoughts, deep learning and growth. Beware of my openness!
- Why: to share my own journey and growth through continuous professional and personal learning with the wider world, with the hope of helping or inspiring others.
- How: reflection in and on action; being open, willing and independent to learn and taking responsibility for my own knowledge, skills and experience to self-develop.
I detail my overall rationale, writing approach and other open journaling benefits of my blog in the blog post 'Why openness is good', 'How to create an authentic blog', 'Pragmatism, criticality and d**ks', '10 years of blogging' and 'Voice'.
Building off my asynchronous approach to a webinar that I previously described. I'm attempting here to share my story of how I created and approach my blog. Which I define as authentic; sharing my personal and professional learning and life – highs and lows, challenges, difficulties, failures, successes, vulnerabilities, achievements and my overall growth and educational journey. I do think that this type of open platform reflection is uncommon practice, which I can see valid reasons for especially in this current climate (cancel culture, toxic workplaces etc), but that shouldn't stop people. Perhaps people are becoming more closed as a result? I have also noticed a sense of anxiety in people sometimes, especially when they have read my personal development type posts as they can be deep and revealing. Which to some can be uncomfortable to even think about doing themselves. I strongly believe in deep sharing and connection with others and will continue to express myself in my way. As like with my LinkedIn profile, I use this blog to record and remind me of my activity and thinking as it can be easily forgotten! I can't recall all my knowledge in a single recall/request, therefore a good structure (headings, questions etc) to tease information out and ongoing journaling helps me. I really have found a way that works for me. And I do feel a sense of personal success with how I use my blog. Perhaps a reason is that I don't treat it as a service for others; churning out content to please 'customers' or earn money from it.
Before I get into it, just a little background context... From my years of experience of open reflective practice, I can't stress enough the importance and benefits of reflective journaling. However, a lot of thought power goes into my reflective writing. Sometimes it's thinking in the moment or on the moment at any time of the day, writing on go, on the day or notes collected over a number of weeks to piece together. I mainly publish my reflection openly here but I do journal as part of my full-time job, allowing me to consolidate my understanding and practice and keeping myself accountable. For example, when I first started my Digital Practice Adviser role at Nottingham Trent University. I created a Microsoft Word document named "One to one notes". Initially this to be used to prepare and process my thoughts and progress updates on my work and projects. However, this quickly became more than just a meeting preparation document, I used it to record and structure my thinking, responses and capture my feelings on situations. It developed my confidence as I was able to position myself better in meetings and other situations by doing it. This document captures my whole work experience in this role and it's been highly influential in my communication and leadership. You do need to dedicate time to input though - akin to my approach that I walkthrough on the use of another medium. I also used a similar learning log approach when doing FutureLearn courses and the recent Jisc Digital Leaders programme, as well as my Movement Medicine work.
Not only do you get the journaling benefits, you come across gems like these... I scrolled through the one to one document recently and I saw comments from when I first started to where I am now and it was heartening to see how much I have grown and changed in confidence - I had a tough challenge ahead of me adapting to a university and the team I was in. I also came across a good piece I wrote in the one to one document that I had forgot about; a reflection on a good training session, as I was focussing too much on the negatives - published at the bottom of the blog post 'Facing my frequency'. Another recent example was when I produced a short summary document for my top manager detailing my interest areas and strengths, with the aim of shaping my role focus towards them. The content was originally adapted from some material I did a couple of years prior. However, this exercise didn't matter in the end as I got a new role shortly afterwards, but my top manager said that it was useful and helped them reflect on the current position of the team.
However, there are some downsides to using the one to one document that I used to help me. 1) Sometimes I had too many notes and didn't prioritise them. 2) Much of what I had wrote was all fresh and not refined. 3) As I was prepared, I was better able to inject into conversations and meetings (not all bad stuff I'll add), and perhaps I should then structure how I will deliver my comments in those situations.
Now, how to create an authentic blog, based on my approach and experience...
EDIT:
Where I say "I write and publish everything on my blog to hold it all in one area." at 04:27. To elaborate on this, any meaningful social media posts I write, I include the text and hyperlink in relevant blog posts. Meaning that when I back up/export my blog they are included too. As you don't know when social media will become inaccessible or delete my posts.
