How To Make A Journal Of Your Life
Melva Simons
Journaling is the practice of regularly writing down your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and reflections. It can take various forms and serve multiple purposes, including personal reflection, goal setting and planning, creative expression, and gratitude development. Plus, anyone can learn how to write a journal and start.
Journaling requires little risk and offers great reward, making it a fitting exercise for understanding yourself better and creating order out of perceived chaos. However, getting started can be the hardest part. Understanding the many benefits of journaling and its best practices can help you make it a daily habit.
Including a journaling practice as part of your daily routine can improve your mental health, social health, and physical well-being. Recent research has shown that journaling helps reduce mental illness symptoms in some individuals. Those with anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) benefited most.
Everyone turns to journaling for different reasons. You might want to use your own journal or diary to reflect on your behaviors. Your friend might want to keep track of their daily routine. Being clear about your intention will help inform the type of journaling you decide to do.
You can start this kind of journal with an intention in mind or just jump in and see where it takes you. The main goal is to get the bulk of your conscious thoughts out so that you can unearth your deeper ideas and perspectives.
Research shows that practicing gratitude can make you happier. One study from psychologists at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Miami asked three groups of participants to write a few sentences each week on a certain topic. Some wrote about gratitude, some about annoyances, and some about life events. After 10 weeks, the group members who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. They also got more exercise and went to the doctor less.
According to an article on the science of gratitude published by the University of Maryland Global Campus, a strong gratitude practice can help with relationship building and developing greater resiliency.
Say you prefer handwriting, but you get a burst of inspiration during your morning commute on the subway. In that case, you can use the notes app on your phone or designated journaling apps to jot down your thoughts before you forget them.
You can also use journaling as an outlet to release heavy emotions like anger, frustration, or sadness. Putting these feelings down on paper can free you from having them linger in your mind. It can also help you with self-discovery by uncovering feelings you may not have noticed otherwise.
Choosing what to write about is a personal decision, and it can change over time. You might start writing your journal to gain clarity about what career you want and then adapt it to include personal goal-setting.
Ready to make a commitment to yourself? BetterUp offers 1:1 personalized coaching to help you live a happier, more fulfilling life. A personal coach can help inspire you to start the right journal type and hold you accountable to make it a habit. Find a coach who works for you.
It's the story that never ends and the one place in my life I can truly be myself - silly and serious, dreamy and sad, there is room for ALL of me in my journal. I want this for you too. I'd love to show you how ?
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Journaling is a simple and accessible way to stay connected to our inner self, our body, our memories and our dreams. It's an on-going conversation with self, something we can do any place at any time.
Journaling is one of my favorite parts of my personal development practice. Although sometimes it is difficult to sit down and write, I often find it an incredibly rewarding experience. Purchase a journal you like and your favorite pens to write with. Set a timer for 15 minutes and start to write. I encourage everyone to write stream of consciousness and see what happens. I promise you will not be disappointed if you stay consistent with this practice. So, without further ado, here are 30 of my FAVORITE journal prompts to change your life:
Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links to the products I personally used to make my own inspiration journal. That means I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use these links to make a purchase.
I print mine on regular white paper and then glue them to thicker black sheets that fit my journal, but you could print them on photo paper for a glossier look (I did this for the vision board that hangs on my wall). You could even print them directly onto the journal pages but just make sure you format it correctly in your printer.
Use blank sheets (lined or unlined, your preference) to make inspiring lists, such as places you want to go, things you want to accomplish, how you want to feel every day, your goals for the week/month/year. You can do daily ones, too, such as a to-do list for the day, gratitude list, celebration list, or any mantras you particularly need to hear that day. Use them in whatever way serves you.
Use stickers to decorate it. Put pretty paper in it. Choose a journal that you love holding and looking at. Get gorgeous markers and a nice pen to use when you write in it. Make the process something special! The better you feel when you do it, the more effective it will be every time you use it.
Throughout history, people from all walks of life have found it rewarding to keep a journal. You can record your conversations and activities from each day, or you can set down the meta-level thoughts and narratives that run behind your day-to-day existence. You can keep a daily, weekly, monthly, or nonlinear journal. The important thing is that you write your truth. Use your journal to help you understand yourself better.
Have you ever made an inspiration board? Often designers put them together to create a pictorial identity for a new product or the overall style of a brand. (They can also be called vision boards or mood boards.) They are usually minimalist and focus on the main colors, fonts, and photo inspiration that a particular brand will follow.
Go through the magazines and cut out pictures and words that stand out. If you want to make this board themed, make sure the pictures are in the same colorways or are similar in some way. (For example: Either everything is some shade of blue or all the pictures represent the ocean somehow.) Cut out the letters for the quote you love from the words in headlines or write the quote onto a small piece of paper. Keep on going until you have enough pictures and words to cover your page.
I usually cut out pictures and arrange them on the page as I go. This allows me to see if I need a larger background photo or just a couple of smaller elements. It can be helpful to use photos in a symbolic way as well: leaves can mean growth, shoes might mean a journey, etc. This opens up catalogs and magazines to even more potential!
After your inspiration board is dry, pull out the gel pens and decorate! Doodle along the edges, outline photos, and add words. This is when the board is going to start looking awesome because all of those details make everything stand out.
In the photo above, I was thinking about a series of talks my pastor at the time was giving about how we all crave things in our lives. It struck me how we are never filled, no matter how many things we buy. Only the Lord can fill up our real needs. If I remember correctly, I mostly used catalogs for those pictures and then outlined and added words with gel pens. Gel pens are the best on magazine paper.
In the photo above, I was reminiscing about my summer in Russia. That window reminds me of the window in our classroom. It was so large, several of us could stand in the windowsill. The room was so hot we often had those windows flung open towards the green countryside.
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My first journals were flowery notebooks from the dollar store that I wrote entirely in third person. I figured the only reason to have a journal in the first place was to leave a record for future generations to find, right? Duh.
One option is to keep separate places for your business planning and more emotional journaling. Nowadays, I like to keep my journal as a sacred place for pondering the future, working through ideas, and planning content. In-the-moment emotional stuff is pounded out in a Word doc. If you type faster than you write, stream of thought journaling on your computer is an exhilarating experience. Trust me, typing angrily into your computer is 10x more satisfying than trying write fast with a ballpoint.
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