Journaling and Writing for Personal Growth

by Helene
(Australia)


Journaling is a powerful tool that few people take full advantage of. It can seem like a silly waste of time to some.

However, journaling provides a ton of benefits and a surprising number of highly successful people make journaling a daily habit.

You can learn a lot about yourself and gain a lot of insight into your life. There’s something magical about writing that thinking alone just doesn’t have.

While you can type your journal into your computer, most people find it more effective to use actual paper journal and write their thoughts down with pen or coloured ink pen.

Use these tips to take advantage of journaling to gain insight into your mind and your life:

1. Review your day. Take a look at your day and make some notes.

● What happened?
● How can you use this in the future?
● What did you learn?
● What mistakes did you make?
● How can tomorrow be better than today?

2. List progress toward your goals.
Think about your goals and list the progress you made toward each. If you failed to do anything to make progress toward one or more of your goals, note that, too.

● Be proud of the progress you’ve made.
● Become more determined by the progress you failed to make.

3. Address your fears.
Write about your fears. What are you afraid of? Why do you think you’re afraid of those things? How do your fears impact your life? What is your plan to address those fears?

4. Choose one way to enhance yourself.
Pick something you want to work on and work on it. Write about it in your journal. Perhaps you want to lose 10 pounds or strengthen your communication skills.

Choose something that would enhance your life and write about your thoughts, plans, and progress.

5. List your goals each day.
Writing down your goals each day is a powerful way to stay focused on them. Write your 10 most important goals each day and notice how they evolve over time.

6. List five things that make you feel grateful.
What are you grateful for? Make a list of several items each day and notice how your perspective on life changes.

7. Write about the obstacles in your life.
What’s standing in your way? List the obstacles in your life that you believe are blocking you from happiness or achieving your goals.

8. Make a plan for the future.
Aside from your specific goals, what does your dream life look like? How are you planning on getting there? Think about it and sketch out a plan.

9. Write about what is causing you to feel negative emotions.
What is getting you down? What are the situations, people, habits, and beliefs that are causing you the most grief? Why do these things bother you? What can you do about it?

10. List the best thing and the worst things that happened today.
What are these two things and what was so great or terrible about them?

11. Use journaling prompts.
There are literally thousands of journaling prompts online you can choose to use at any time. Here are a few examples to get you started:

● Make a travel bucket list.
● List five things you appreciate about each member of your family.
● Describe your ideal day.
● If I could speak to my teenage self, I would say…
● I wish that others knew I…
● I wish I could say no to...
I have created and published some gorgeous Personal Journals and Gratitude Journals that are colour illustrated and have writing prompts for you to reflect on. No more staring at blank white pages when you get one of these!

Journaling each day can take some time, but it’s time that’s well spent. Develop a routine that incorporates journaling into your life.

It won’t be long before you begin noticing the benefits. Do what the most successful people in the world do and write about your thoughts and your life.

Related Reading Strategic Publications by Helene Malmsio.

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How to Get Started Writing a Journal
by: Helene

Getting started journaling isn’t something that you need to think about too hard. Yes, there are numerous types and styles of journals and ways to do this that may or may not be more effective depending on your goals, but you can simply get some paper (or your computer) and get started today.

* Dust Off Your Pen and Paper – You don’t need anything special to keep a journal; in fact, purists believe that using pen and paper is the best way to journal because you can carry it with you anywhere and you don’t need technology. So, there will be no excuses.

* Do It First Thing in the Morning – Don’t procrastinate about keeping your journal. It’s best to do it in the morning before you begin your day so that you have the right frame of mind for the day. Plus, you only need five to ten minutes, so it’s not that big of a deal.

* Do It Last Thing at Night – Another time to do it is before bed. This works especially well for gratitude journals. That way you can go to sleep thinking about all the things you are grateful for instead of things you’re worried about.

* Write Every Single Day – Whenever you choose to do it, try to set it up so that it becomes a ritual and a habit. Journaling every single day is going to be more effective than just doing it when you feel like it.

* Start Simply – Don’t start being worried about style and substance right now; just work on the daily habit with pen and paper (or if it’s easier for you, a computer or smartphone). Don’t make it hard - just get going.

* Begin with Today – Start right now and write about your day today. That’s the easiest thing to do. What of significance happened today? How did you feel about it? What would you do differently? What would you do the same?

* Try Different Types of Journals – Once you develop the habit, you can start trying different types of journaling like a bullet journal, or a vision journal, or maybe even a project journal for your next project.

* Keep It Private – The main thing to remember about your journal is that it should be kept private. The only exception is if you want to share thoughts with a therapist, counselor, or coach. Or if you want to turn it into a book or course, to help someone else overcome whatever you overcame.

Keeping a journal will help you deal with the things that happen to you as well as the things that have not happened to you. The main reason is that writing it down helps you remember what you did right and what you did wrong.

It helps you improve your decision-making capacity for similar situations. The main thing is just to get started journaling in any way that works for you.

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