Keeping a journal is a type of daily mental muscle work that gradually improves focus. Expression can help solve problems, manage emotion, and improve self development. Writing in a journal strengthens your writing, thinking and learning abilities, allowing you to unpack your experiences. You can use a journal to set goals, organize thoughts or bust out a rant.
A Journal does these 3 Basic Things:
- Helps you learn about experiences.
- Makes you aware of yourself and others.
- Identifies trends that affect you.
Tennis great Serena Williams at Wimbeldon in 2007 said, “Writing…can help clear out negative thoughts and emotions that keep you feeling stuck.”
The Value of a Journal
- Reduces stress
- Increases self-awareness
- Sharpens mental skills
- Creates inspiration and insight
A journal allows you to stand outside your experience, see objectively and detach yourself from emotional outcomes. A journal is a bridge between your actions and the reflection of those actions. This bridge aides you in self-directed development.
How to Journal
The process of writing in a journal recalls memories and brings you right back into the moment.
Value the information you are collecting or you will not put much effort into it.
Journal writers fail to explore their experiences and think deeply. You usually engage in top layer reflection. You must think critically. Just logging events with no reflection will get no results. You should describe, analyze and disect the event, so you can reconstruct it with alternative approaches.
Deliberately think about your past actions or ongoing season asking yourself how to improve the future.
When you write with expression you make sense of what you see, read, do, and talk about. Expression allows you to internalize knowledge, making it part of yourself, putting it together in your own mind, reinforcing and mapping it.
One way to create a an expressive and reflective journal is to develop prompts about your interests and activities.
Creating Journal Prompts
Use prompts to guide you in a journal. Prompts can help analyze your strengths and weaknesses. A journal should be authentic and critical. You’re doing real reflection that should matter to you.
Do not write to say what you know, but to think and learn about your experiences.
Create prompts about your day and life. There are examples of great journal prompts already out there. Use a Google search to find some ideas or templates.
Journal prompts invite you to examine your life. They should help you discover how you can plan, reflect, and learn.
Conclusion
Organizing, planning, and reflecting can play a decisive role. A way to meditate, opening up your mind. A journal offers meaningful and practical lessons you can reflect on, offering a glimpse into your life.
Writing in a journal daily can reduce stress, improve focus, solve a problem and help organization. Would these potential benefits be worth 15 minutes of your day?
Thanks for the suggestion on “prompts,” Kirby.
You’re welcome Glenn.
Yes it would be. I need to get back in this habit. Thanks for the push.
It’s a good habit. Reflection is what I do first thing when I get going in the morning. I’ve had a night to sleep on the previous day and do not have anything else interrupting my thoughts. I also like to identify any mistakes I think I made and lessons learned from the previous day. I think doing this sets the bar and gives me greater awareness for the day.
A few prompts I use are:
What did I learn.
What am I thankful for.
How am I feeling.
What did I read.
Did I work towards my goals and what.
What bad habits do I need to stop.
What motivated me.
Am I the person that I want to be.
What mistakes did I make and what can I learn from them.
I haven’t begun to journal yet, but when I look back to some of my writing and articles from years before, I start to notice some key trends that I would have never picked up on otherwise. It’s amazing to see what has remained consistent and what has changed as I’ve grown. Sometimes I feel that I’m on to a new realization, only to see that I actually wrote about it three years ago and just forgot.
Ryan,
That is great. I’ve had a similar experience with some academic papers I’ve written. Try journaling weekly and build up to a daily habit. Something about putting our thoughts on paper makes us own and improve upon the ideas we generate. Thanks for the comment.