the Joy of Writing a Journal

There are many reasons why you should start journaling. Aside from its health benefits, such as helping you reduce stress and anxiety, it truly develops the inner self. That is, if you are honest and consistent. Some people would do this for mental health issues or to express art.

I have been journaling for almost 20 years. I wrote on notebooks about how my day went through, my thoughts, my reflections and answers to personal discovery questions. I wrote a letter to my future partner.  I said my prayers in writing.  I summarized what happened in a month and rated it. I listed dozens of checklists to do, and when I looked back, only half was done. It reminded me to take actions. I have drawn life flow charts. I doodled flowers with leaves. And as I looked back on my old writings, I smiled at the prayers that were answered.

It's important that you know the reason why you should write a journal. You shouldn't just follow the fad.  You don't have to think your journal should be colorful and designed with arts and crafts.

Keep in mind that discovering yourself is your main goal. You want to write a story of your experiences, your thoughts, opinions, your feedback to self, and your many plans and dreams.  In journal writing, there are no limits.

I have consolidated tips and guides on journaling. I personalized my points that have helped me continue to journal for more than 10 years. See how you can start your simple journal and how to continue the art of journaling:

It is recommended to write in a physical notebook; it is much better. 

There is a different feeling of using a pen and a notebook to write.  I don't think this is obsolete as there are still many journal notebooks for sale with grand designs,  eco-friendly options and expensive papers.  Many already come up with guides and prompts. 

However, some people will not agree with writing in notebooks, because the journal might end up on someone else's hand and read it. While I don't have statistics on that possibility,  there should be a way to secure your personal things.  There are many reasons to prefer digital or other methods, and that's okay, you should use whatever approach suits you best.

Create a journal prompt list. 

To help you jumpstart what to write about in your first few days and weeks of journaling, I've created a list of journal prompts. While many journal prompts are available online, we'll tackle a few shown here to get you started.

It doesn't have to be structured or perfect. 

There are many topics or things you can write about in your journal. It is up to you if you want to focus on your interests, like the details of your travels and adventures. You can record your food habits if you want to manage your health and weight, or combine these topics and others, such as your outfit of the day. You can experiment and see how it goes. 

You might be intimidated by some artistic and colorful journals on the internet. However, that is not the goal here. Unless you would like to create a journal to showcase your creativity, you should rather consider creating a scrapbook.  In addition to the stylish, colorful, and expensive notebooks to choose from, you can use colored pens, and other writing materials.  If you are not good at drawing, use stickers or cut-out pictures from old magazines to add some visuals.

Set aside a time for this activity.  

It can be in the morning or in the evening for at least 15 minutes. If this is part of your morning or night routine, then you should be consistent to write.  Commit to a daily journaling.

Eventhough you are not inspired to write anything,  you can use your ready prompts and questions so you can start.  You can use my ready templates to help you write something about the day.  Choose any of the designs below.  If you want these templates, subscribe to my email list so I can email all the templates in PDF format for printing.

Journal Template 1 - Prayer Journal

Journal template 2 - Daily Journal

Journal template 3 - Travel Journal

Journal topics to inspire you to write

• How was your day?  This is mediocre in journal writing;  it a record or documentation of how your day was. It is not wrong as we want to highlight basically what happened to your day.  You can add emoticon or rating of your day.  

• Highlight the highs and lows of the day. You can narrate or list down the things that are good and positive that happened to you.  Create another section for low or sad happenings if you still want to include it.

• Anything that has been bothering you.

• Write your prayer.  I write my prayer there's a lot of things in my mind. There were just times that we can't be still, so at least when we write, we are stimulated to focus on one thing. 

• Things to be thankful for the day.  This is practicing gratefulness; you can write down the things you are thankful for that happened within the day. Write also the people you are thankful for.  Write in details what they did and how they made your day.

• Things that you wish you did today.  While lookig back on what happened today, you might have missed to take action or have forgotten some commitments. You can come up of a way to make it up the next day.

• What you've always wanted to buy. Whether you can afford to buy it or not, describe these things you craved for. You can create a budget plan to achieve buying this item.

• All the places you've been. Write some short description of the places you have been that cost you a lot of money and time. This can inpire you to write a travel journal instead.

•  Write your answered prayers. 

• You can also write the things that didn't happen very well.

• You can write a love letter to yourself.  Start affirming what you have done, and give encouragements.  Don't be harsh, don't write anything negative.  Write on something you are proud of.

• Write a letter to someone.  There might be things you wanted to say to someone afar and can't tell it for some reasons.  This is another way to express your feelings towards the person.

The good things happening to you when journaling

1.  You are discovering your inner being. Journaling have helped me to clearly understand what I need and want for my life. I identified the people and things I hate and also people I truly love.  I learned how I genuinely live my life, my work ethics and my daily habits. I discovered my personality and my true character.  With these discoveries, I decided I needed to thrive.  The journal prompts for discovering yourself have helped me realized these different areas in our life.

2. Journaling organized our thoughts.  When I write, I narrated or use bullet lists of all my ideas and thoughts.  I grouped them and some I separated.  I also draw, I created mind maps, some flows of my thoughts and outputs.  It truly helped me in my decision making and in my planning. 

3. Writing helps to release stress. I wrote my rants, my confusions, and my anger, specially those things I could't speak out.

4. Answered prayers. There's no greater development in my life than establishing a relationship with God through the prayers I have written over and over in my journal.  I saw my determination and my hope for these prayers to be answered.  Take note: the answered prayers are either yes, no, or delayed.  Through my journal, the reasons were revealed when I looked back.  There was such a relief, and I was truly amazed on how God made it worked, as if the universe was orchestrated to have all things work in my favor.

For sure, there are even more amazing outcomes in others' lives from journaling. If there is one element to include in your personal development journey, journaling is a key component. Consistency remains to be the discipline, like any other habit to contribute in your success.

If you need other personal development guides on loving more of yourself, you can browse on my Loving Yourself page. If you like to get the templates, subscribe in my email list.