“The best time to begin keeping a journal is whenever you decide to.” Hannah Hinchman

Writing your thoughts down as a daily habit is better known as journaling. It’s one of the best ways to track your everyday life. You can use journaling to figure out what is or isn’t working in your life. Things become more tangible when written down on paper. As you write about your motivations, struggles, or things that you feel remorseful about, you will be in a better position to solve them, live with them, or let them go. 

In addition, you will also have a written record of your positive thoughts and feelings, your desires, your dreams, and what makes you proud. Your journal is also a good place to consider the ideas you have for improving relationships with family and friends. And you will want to celebrate your achievements and express your gratitude. A journal can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Either way, the future you will be thankful you began.

How to leverage a journal in your everyday life.

Choose a quiet place.

It's best when you begin to journal that you choose a place that is peaceful and comfortable. Being in a busy, noisy, atmosphere makes it more difficult to focus on the thoughts and feelings you want to get down on paper. Journaling helps bring stability when your life feels like it’s going through a rough patch. It helps you get to know yourself better by revealing your innermost fears, thoughts, and feelings. When you are journaling, it’s a moment for personal relaxation, a time when you do soul-searching and relieve stress and wind down.

Observe the patterns.

A written record of the challenges in your life becomes reference material for you. You will be able to see the problems that you are facing now and those you have been able to overcome. It allows you to notice patterns, make improvements, and change over time. Being conscious of the strength that you had in other circumstances helps you to move ahead with more confidence. Through journaling, you can create a meaningful connection with yourself which is as important as creating meaningful connections with family or friends.

Gain control.

Many people struggle with stress, depression, or anxiety; however, keeping a journal can help you gain control of your emotions and improve your mental health and memory. You should avoid an excess of stress as it can be harmful to your mental, physical, and emotional health. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that journaling is an incredible stress management tool. Having a written record of your thoughts and plans reinforces your control over the things that happen in your life. 

Build accountability.

Journaling is great training in accountability. If you can build a habit of writing each day, then you can also stick to the goals or plans you set for yourself. Moving forward the thoughts you set down are tracking the progress of your plans for the short term. In the future, looking back, you have a broad overview. Writing a journal allows you to discover what makes you happy, what moves you, and how to navigate your feelings and behaviors most proficiently. Developing a habit of journaling as a pre-bedtime meditation habit can help you relax and cool down emotions.

Solve problems.

Every day journaling allows you to work through some difficult emotions you may have such as depression and anger, reducing the intensity of those emotions and comforting yourself.  It also helps you to solve problems through decisive thinking and right-brain reflection. Through journaling, you can realize compassion, resolve conflicts, and cultivate understanding, love, and kindness for yourself.

Connect with inner needs.

One of the best ways to strengthen your emotional function is through journaling. Writing down what you feel when something triggers a strong emotion helps you understand the cause and can help you find a solution. As journaling habits are developed, benefits become long-term. This means that diarists become more in tune with their mental health by connecting with inner needs and desires.

Have a happier life.

Journaling can be a good way to have a happier life. Journaling enhances your mood and gives you a better sense of overall emotional well-being and happiness. Focusing on being grateful for what you have helps to lessen the power of the things not achieved yet. Writing down how far you have come or how thankful you are for your blessings, friends, and families.

Improve your confidence.

Journaling can help you to have a greater sense of confidence and self-identity. In addition, it also helps in the organization of important patterns and growth in life. Research shows that expressive writing can help a person to develop more planned, adaptive, and cohesive schemes about themselves and others.  Through journaling, one can also open and engage the right brain creativity, which gives you access to your creative potential.

Discover the lasting benefits of habitual journaling.

Writing has always been a popular tool for self-expression. It renders what our minds produce into tangible records, either on paper or on a digital platform. Writing your thoughts and plans is insurance against the loss of your mental expressions.

If ever there was a useful method of recording your vision, goals, and dreams, it is journaling. People often confuse this with keeping a diary. The two have similarities such as the fact that both involve writing and are about personal record keeping. Both are an extension of your mind, but there are variations that characterize them.

Journal vs Diary.

A diary is a record of daily events. It is a description of what the day has been like, with details of activities one has engaged in, and feelings evoked by the events. It is an exploration of one's emotions as triggered by events. Diaries are private entries, which is why some come with locks. When one hears the term diary, thoughts go to the teenage kinds where one records crushes, heartbreaks, and rivalries. That is not only what a diary is for. You can keep a diary at any stage of your life with more mature investigations of your thoughts and feelings. We can also use diaries when making nostalgic reminiscences for different stages in our lives.

A journal is more extensive as it includes more than just emotional examination. Journals let you write your thoughts and experiences around future goals and plans. It is less about ranting as people assume a diary is for and more about writing for reflections on important issues. Keeping a journal allows you to assemble your ideas and observations, so you can create a plan to move forward. An example would be a journal of personal goals where you can record a weight loss goal and a detailed plan to achieve it. You can record the small steps of victory and any drawbacks along with your plan to overcome them. 

You use journals as organization tools whereas diaries are about exploring feelings. A journal can be a tool for tracking progress for personal or corporate goals. It helps you keep track of everyday life.

There are different journals that one can keep. The list includes a personal journal, a business journal, a prayer journal, a workout journal, a gratitude journal, a bullet journal, and so on. All these journals explore different areas of one's life.

The use of a gratitude journal would involve recording what you are grateful for on a regular basis. You could record daily or as often as you can, citing people that you are grateful for. This process is more reflective, allowing you to examine your life for what you have around you that adds meaning and value to it. In that journal, you could plan how to express gratitude for others and record how doing so has improved your perspective on life. You can even record how doing something for others as a sign of gratitude makes you feel.

In a business journal, you can describe your vision for your business and write plans to take it to new heights. You can record completed daily tasks that feed into your dream and allow for evaluation of previous achievements or failures and suggestions for future enterprises. What matters is honesty and imagination. Your journal is a safe space where you can convey your dreams and reflect on your life. 

Benefits of journaling.

A personal journal is like a memoir. It is a window into history- a pathway of your life that other people can trace generations later. There are several prominent people in history whose journals were discovered and studied long after they died. These contain information on some of the most pivotal moments in the history of humanity. From the travel journals of explorers like Marco Polo to creative journals by Leonardo da Vinci, they offer us glimpses into the world of inventors and people who made significant contributions. There are scientific journals from Marie Curie documenting findings in the early research into radioactivity, and memoirs of captains of great wars on their battle strategies. All these are records of the lives of people who made an impact in various sectors of the history of mankind. 

You can also record your history for your family to trace for generations to come. Here is a link to my What Is A Grandparent’s Journal? If you are a pioneer in a certain field or continuing with research done before you, you can add your contributions and let others know your achievements by keeping a journal detailing the progress from their work to yours.

Keeping a personal journal helps you analyze events in your life and explore your feelings more constructively, without limitation. It can be as therapeutic as finding someone to confide in, helping you to process your feelings and thoughts much better. This impacts your mental health as you unload the burden of thoughts and feelings onto paper. Your journal can help you deal with stress and ensure overall wellness. 

A gratitude journal helps you to focus on the things that matter. It improves your outlook on life by keeping you positive about what you have.

A creative journal gives your mind the freedom it needs to capture and expand a dream. You can be as creative as you want in articulating your vision without judgment.

Writing your goals for your business or your personal vision makes them more real to you and encourages you to go for them. A journal allows you to focus on what you want to accomplish. 

Keep a journal as a way of finding clarity in any area of your life. It is the best form of expression and evaluation we have at our disposal.

My final thought.

Grab a cup of tea or coffee and begin putting what’s on your mind into your journal. Just begin where you are. This is good for you — physically, mentally, and emotionally. You don’t have to be the greatest or most skillful writer for you to begin journaling. But you do need to set aside a dedicated space and time for journaling.

For more information on journaling, read this post.

8 Spiritual Benefits Of Journaling (That Might Surprise You).

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Pass it on if you know someone who would benefit from the information.