You have seen and heard the benefits of journaling and have maybe wanted to start one as most people have, but every time you try you can’t seem to stay consistent or can’t find anything to write. OR maybe you don’t even know where to start! I personally have been journaling for a while and it really is an easy thing to do even though it seems like a long winding path with correct systems and a million do’s and don’ts. I’m here to share my tips and tricks in journaling that help me journal daily and effectively.
Firstly, you have to understand that your journal doesn’t have to be aesthetic or perfect (this is coming from a perfectionist btw) This mindset tends to box you in and feel like you’re not doing it right and eventually give up. Journaling is for everyone you don’t have to fit a specific category of people or be of a certain skill set to participate in it.
Here are the chapters
Benefits of journaling જ⁀➴✒
How to start a journal જ⁀➴✒
Tips on journaling જ⁀➴✒
How to decorate your journal જ⁀➴✒
Prompts to include in your journal જ⁀➴✒
BENEFITS OF JOURNALING ⊹ ₊ ݁._-🖋 ─ ۶ৎ
One of the best motivators to help you build the drive to want to journal is know the benefits of journaling, so what are they?
Well first of all journaling is a powerful tool to self-reflect / for self-reflection. Journaling helps one to really connect with themselves and their emotions, pour into their own cup and organize their thoughts. This really helps if you are an overthinker or tend to have many thoughts bouncing around in your head from time to time.
It helps to improve one’s mental and physical health. It is an outlet for all your thoughts and emotions which reduces stress and anxiety which in turn, help boost your mental and physical health. Another thing that can help boost mental health along with regular journaling is practicing gratitude journaling. Gratitude is known to boost happiness levels and make one appreciate what they have more no matter how small or easy to overlook. Also helps with memory and productivity.
Journaling helps keep track of goals. One of the biggest reasons why most people don’t achieve their goals is that they set them and forget about them and don’t keep track of them, after all out of sight out of mind. So, journaling is a great way to keep track of your goals, develop habits and put systems in place that help you work towards your goals.
Journaling assists us in keeping memories. Documenting your experiences in your journal is one of the best ways to preserve them in a way. One of my favourite activities when I’m bored to read my old journal entries. I see how I used to think, approach situations, what I disliked what I liked, WHO I like lol and so much more. This also helps us to see our growth and how much we changed. How we improved and what situations we were able to overcome and appreciate it so much more.
Helps with trauma recovery. Some say that journal is like free therapy and I’m willing to bet on that. Journaling has shown to help with trauma by providing a safe space for one to express their emotions without any judgment, help one develop self-awareness, build a story around what one experienced, validate ones feelings and what one has experienced and so much more which is actively helping them work towards recovery. And In the end it can track progress and show you have far you have come and how much you’ve worked through to get to where you are.
Helps increase creativity. Personally when I get an idea I love to jolt it down for two reasons, one I sometimes have short term memory loss or something cause if I just let it sit in mind for a little it will literally disappear and boom I have nothing and two what’s better than a collections of your creative ideas! Journaling encourages one capture thoughts, ideas and different perspectives which boosts creativity. Also can help loads with brainstorming, it will be easier to come up with something if you can see all your thoughts and ideas in front of you rather then when they are just floating around in your mind.
⊹₊✎⋆ HOW TO START A JOURNAL ⊹₊✎⋆
This a pre step one step. What I mean is, you could do prep work. Prep work consists of two parts. The first one is finding your intention.
You need to ask yourself why do you want to journal? Once you have your answer it will be a kind of motivation to stay consistent in journaling. Along with finding your intention you can also decide what kind of journal you want. They are various types such as manifestation journals, daily journal, gratitude journal, goal checker journal and many more.
The second part, is setting up your environment. Whatever makes you comfortable, calm and relaxed. This will make you want to journal more often. Now for the actual the first step which is
Get a journal ⊹₊✎⋆.
You can have a physical journal or a digital one, I’ll be focusing more on the physical one but you can still apply this to a digital one. So, get yourself a cute note book to start off. You are more likely to stay consistent with journaling if you have a notebook you like and keep in mind it doesn’t have to be expensive to be adorable.
Find time. ⊹₊✎⋆.
You need to set aside time every day or weekly to journal. This could be just before you sleep or when you wake up, it truly is up to you and what works for you. I usually journal after school before I start my homework because it is convenient for me (though sometimes I usually push back my homework time accidentally when I have so much to write down lol)
Start writing. ⊹₊✎⋆.
It really is as easy as it seems. Just sit down with your pen and book and put pen to paper. They’re loads of things to write about for example your day, your thoughts, to- do lists etc. If you are really blank you can use prompts to guide you or give you ideas. Go onto Pinterest or google and search journaling prompts and you’ll find many good ones. You could also just hop to the prompts section of this post as your already here!
Make it a Habit. ⊹₊✎⋆.
You need to make journaling a habit in order to reap its full benefits and it is really easy. As long as you make time for it, keep your journal in a place you can see it ( remember out of sight out of mind) and practice the tips listed in the next section it will be really easy to make this a habit and not a chore.
𓍢ִ໋🀦TIPS ON JOURNALING 𓍢ִ໋🀦𓍢ִ໋
Build consistency.
You can build consistency by training your brain. This includes what I mentioned earlier which is setting or putting aside a specific time to write in your journal. Repetition makes habits after all. As an extra measure you can set an alarm on your phone to ensure that you don’t forget to journal.
You don’t need to write down every single detail.
In the beginning it may feel like you need to write down every single detail that happened in your day when in reality you don’t. I usually only write down what made me happy, something exciting that happened, something I wouldn’t want to forget etc. If I were to start writing every little thing that happened, I would never finish any my entries. So, if you don’t want to write about an event, DON’T. It is just as easy as that. When we only write what we want to it doesn’t feel like a chore.
Emotional depth.
Don’t worry if your entries aren’t deep, emotional or raw. They really don’t have to be! They can be just simple and light hearted, so if they are like this don’t feel discouraged or like you’re not journaling right. As you continue this journaling journey, you’ll eventually write at least one entry that deep and filled with emotion.
Pick a nice notebook.
This might seem like a simple thing or irrelevant but it actually helps. When you have a nice, appealing notebook you’re more likely to want to write in it compared to if you just a have a plain notebook that doesn’t have any allure. I said this earlier but I will say it again, it doesn’t have to be expensive to be cute. Also, if you can’t find a nice notebook within your price range that you like you could also decorate a plain one in a way you like!
Start small with a low expectation.
When you start journaling you may not be a professional (and I use this time very loosely). You may see others online filling so many pages with entries and decorating each page with stickers and drawing and it being the most aesthetically pleasing thing ever. You should remember you don’t have to hold yourself up to that standard because it may demotivate you to journal daily. I’ve been journaling for around two years and I am still yet to reach that level of beauty in my journal. Though I do not strive for that, personally my journal is just a documentation of me as a person and I am a lot so some of my entries look like they were written by seven year old trying to write with their non dominant but its I’m okay with that and you can be too.
⋆˙✧｡HOW TO DECORATE YOUR JOURNAL ⋆°📷 ༘⋆｡°
Now for one of my favourite parts, customizing your journal. After all its yours, your ought to like right? You could decorate the inside or outside of your journal or both! Personally, I decorated the first two pages of mine, my journal had two blank pages at the front then a calendar so I thought to myself why don’t I decorate it! I went on Pinterest, made a board and selected photos I wanted to be in that space. Here is a photo of how it turned out
Okay i would like to explain it abit. First i made this when i was 12 i think? Because it was just before I entered the 7th grade. I had a HUGE obsession withe The Umbrella Academy. It was actually my first comfort show ever. Especially season 2. The vibes were too perfect, the plot was peak AND THE ONE LINERSSS. DONT GET ME STARTED ON THOSE. I loved it so much. I made so many of my friends watch it lol.
I was really excited about season 4 but they literally ruined my favourite show. I was crushed mahn. From there my relationship with it had to end, it was sad but at least now we have replacements! I should make a post about those cause the hyperfixation is real with them. Anyways you can see that my favourite was Aidan Gallagher. I had the hugest crush on him.
I had tape, glitter glue, pearls and a dream lol.
I used materials I found around which leads to my next point of you don’t need to buy a lot of stuff to decorate your pages. Some stickers, colourful pens or colour pencils, and printed photos and your good to go! The covers and front pages aren’t the only ones you can customize your entries too. When decorating your entries you can either choose to make it a simple some thing or you can go all out, its all up to you. For simpler designs you can try doodling around your entries of sticking small crafts to go along with it. My personal example of a simple design is one I did.
( Ignore the huge crayon heart, but a girls gotta do what she gotta do to keep her things private)
I just made some bows using some origami paper I had a simple tutorial I found on pinterest. Wich reminds me i haven’t made some in AWHILE. Then I cut out some small love hearts from various origami papers and craft paper and sprayed my favorite scent on the page. The space I left was for a song lyric I planned to write but I never found a perfect one to match the vibe of the page lol.
For a more spiced up idea you can try sticking stickers and writing around it, using colourful pens, sticking washi tape on the borders of your page, cutting out our shapes and sticking them, tearing articles from magazines and sticking them and so much more. If you are blank or cannot find a good idea try Pinterest for inspiration. You could also use my post covers for inspo! I suck at layering things irl, but digitally i create some mean designs don’t you think?
𑣲ᯓ𝄞 ˎˊ˗PROMPTS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR JOURNAL 𑣲𝄡
If youre blank on what to write about, prompts are the way to go! The prompts could be general or specific. Some examples of general prompt ideas include:
- An about my page
- Things you love,
- letter to your future self
- Letters to your younger self,
- Your favourite podcasts,
- Your favourite shows,
- Making playlists for different moods,
- Love letters,
- Brain dumps,
- Vents,
- To- do lists,
- Shadow work,
- your favourite songs,
- books to read,
- goals and dreams,
- places you want to visit, etc
Types of specified or categorized prompts include:
Wellness prompts-How your feeling, what you are grateful for, daily affirmations, what are your goals for the day etc
Self- reflection prompts– When do you feel most like yourself, what is something you wish others knew about you, is there someone you are unknowingly seeking approval/ validation from, what are your boundaries etc
Productivity prompts– What are some goals you want to set for the week, what is a system you want to implement to improve your productivity, what are 3 important tasks you have to finish this coming week, what’s your most time-consuming task every day, etc
Creative writing prompts
Bullet journaling prompts
Dream journaling prompts
๋࣭ ⭑✏ˎˊ˗જ⁀➴✒
Lastly I have some advice to give you, there will come some times that you really don’t have anything to write and no matter how many prompts you go through you just come out empty handed. Its okay it has happened to me multiple times yet I am almost through with my current journal. You wont always have something to write about even when you want to write. Journaling should be a fun beneficial thing for you so keep it to that. Don’t make it too complex that it becomes a chore for you to write consistency. I hope this has helped you to get somewhat of an idea how to start your journal and enjoy doing so!
