This is the Title Page of the latest Travel Journal I’m doing - I started this last summer and will probably finish it this spring with short local trips.
Permission
Pause
Passion
Perspective
It seems to me that these 4 words combine to give us something that we all strive to have more of somewhere in our lives - a creative spirit. And it won’t surprise you that, I believe, keeping a Travel Journal is an ideal vehicle to begin that process of caring for your creative side.
A Travel Journal can hold all those unique insights and keen observations that seem to reveal themselves when we travel. Will you record them, or will they fade away and take their new meaning in your life with them?
A quick sea-side sketch on the Big Island of Hawaii - more of a Travel Journal experiment.
I’ve started with Permission because, in the end, you only need to give yourself that permission. Oddly, however, this is something that we generally seem a bit reluctant to give ourselves. Let me ask you to be brave, then, and tell yourself that nurturing your creative side will do you a world of good.
Here’s one way to help you give yourself that permission - go into your bathroom and close the door. Then, look into the mirror and smile at yourself and say (out loud) ‘Go and do this. You’re a strong and creative person and you can do this.’ This may sound overly simple, but that’s part of the beauty of it, because both your mind and your ears hear those words of permission and help reinforce the notion.
Instead of putting pressure on yourself to do full-pages sketches and paintings in your Travel Journal, think about only doing small vignettes that help capture the scene - at least when your starting out.
Once you’ve given yourself permission, the next step comes by being strong and making the decision to take a ‘pause’, in whatever you’re doing, to let your creativity flow.
By now, you may know that I’m a big proponent of ‘the pause’. If you have, indeed, given yourself the permission to find more creativity in your life, then I believe the pause will come easier to you. You will see that you don’t, in fact, need the approval of your travel mates to take that pause and do a quick pencil sketch or to jot a few notes about the sights and sounds of that wonderful outdoor market you’re visiting, or that stunning landscape vista that the tourist brochures just couldn’t capture.
If you let your travel mates know ahead of time that you’ll want to ‘pause’ to do a quick sketch or make some notes, then no one is surprised.
When you give yourself the permission to find more creativity in your day, and when you make that conscious choice to take a pause to let it all flow….that’s when you’ll begin to see your passion grow too. Passion for travel or passion for bird watching, or passion for writing or sketching or cooking and so much more……it only matters what that passion is for you. So, go ahead and make time for you!
When all is said and done, your perspective on/in your life will change - you will become a different person. My bet is that you will not only become a different person….you will become a better person too.
This is one of the small sketch paintings I did in my Travel Journal in Zihuatanejo, Mexico - a great visit to the downtown fish market!
That permission and pause will build your keen sense of observation, it will kindle new insights on a myriad of topics, and it will sensitize you to the more whole person you are becoming - because, in the end, throughout our lives we are all in a state of ‘becoming’. The difference, in you, will be that you are more aware of those subtle shifts in your life.
So here’s what I’d like to ask you to do:
When you keep a Travel Journal, these 4 words have a tangible outlet that you can keep with you for years (and generations) to come. In the longer term, those Travel Journals form part of your ‘Proof of Life’ and, in hindsight, you can see how your creative spirit begins to emerge. How wonderful is that!
This is a set of Bookmarks that I sketched/painted while on my travels this past winter - I used small vignettes from my Travel Journal as inspiration.
Finally, remember that keeping a Travel Journal isn’t supposed to be a job….so relax and I think you’ll quickly find that you get better and better with every single Travel Journal you keep.
To help with the challenge of ‘what to include’ in your Travel Journal, I’ve attached a link to a PDF that I’ve put together to help you build that framework and get you going. Years from now, you’ll never regret having kept a Travel Journal, and your descriptions will be so much richer if you pay attention to your 5 (and 6th) senses.
Email me to let me know how I can help you get going on setting up your very own Travel Journal. Tell me what your biggest barriers are, and I’ll help you overcome them.
Go ahead and click this link to download you framework on Travel Journal ‘content’!
https://www.newtraveljournal.com/50-best-Travel-Journal-Prompts
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