Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash
Journal serves you, so make it yours
There is only one right way of journaling:
Your way.
Before I started journaling, I never learned from my failures.
I repeated the same mistake, never understanding why it happened to me. In my mind, I was always a victim.
Until I started journaling.
My journal allowed me to create the first relationship that I work on. I analyze my actions and their outcomes and adjust to the situation.
It’s one thing out of hundreds you get when you reflect on your life.
And here I give you tips distilled from over 1000 entries. These are my absolute top seven to journal for a better life.
Find Your Why
Motivation will leave you like a prostitute when the time is over.
It won’t stay for tomorrow. That’s its fleeting nature. That’s why you can’t rely on it. You need to generate drive yourself.
Nothing is better to generate drive than knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing.
What in your life needs an upgrade? What skills do you lack to get what you want? You can find out through your journal.
You can turn your world around by remembering what you want to do and why.
Journal is external storage you can use for that. You’ll survive any storm knowing what’s awaiting you after it ends. And that knowledge will serve you as a beacon to follow.
Journal with a goal in mind.
Journal to free yourself from nagging thoughts or to increase your drive to take action. Know your why to keep going, even when you don’t feel like it.
Go For Consistency Instead of Intensity
Self-discovery is a long-term game.
You’ll benefit more from regular effort over a long time than short bursts of high intensity. The more often you write a journal, the more opportunities you have to reflect. Thanks to having more data points, you can spot patterns in your behavior quicker. Then you can work on changing those patterns.
According to Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan, it’s better to feel good more often than great once.
The same goes for journaling. The more you review your actions, the more granular the change you get. The smaller the change, the easier the implementation. And when it’s easy, your chances of sticking to journaling increase.
Consistent effort to write your journal will grant you the necessary time for practice. You want to become better at thinking, and that requires time.
Keep Your Journal Private
Only brutal honesty, openness, and freedom enable the full potential of journaling.
You must write the darkest secrets lurking in your brain. You must know precisely what you are and what you’re capable of. That’s 100x easier when you keep your journal private.
The ultimate goal is getting better at being you at the same time, increasing chances for living a good life.
Remember that if you want to have sex with your coworker while in a relationship, you must write about it. It’s up to you to judge your actions, but you must come clean with yourself.
Doing that makes you one step closer to accepting who you are.
And acceptance frees up your resources. Because you no longer have to resist what you think and feel. Then you can identify the real problems because nothing hides from you.
Keep your journal to yourself to write down everything that bothers you, including what bothers you in others.
Start Now With Small Steps And Improve Later
The perfect moment to start is now.
You never know everything. Preparing to start journaling is procrastination. The nature of the practice makes it simple to start anytime you can write. Learning requires practice, so that’s what you should do — practice.
Starting gives you a chance immediately.
The sooner you start, the longer you have to get better. Reflecting upon your actions and outcomes lets you spot challenges and problems. You discover obstacles and ways to overcome them.
Start small, with five minutes a day, so the chances you are sticking to the habit are the highest.
At first, your task is to sit down and write a journal. Nothing else matters. Do the bare minimum.
After five minutes, decide if you want to write more.
Starting small gives you massive potential for improvement because you can stick to your habit. Start big and be like the rest of the people who resigned after one or two tries.
Avoid Blank Page
The blank page is what kills your dreams.
Fear of not knowing what to write is strong. It can block you. Besides, the vision of an ideal journal doesn’t help. To tackle both fears, ask yourself questions.
Create a template.
Ask questions you want an answer for. What do you want? Why do you want that? How can you get that? Or anything that feels right to you.
Constraining yourself will free your creative genius.
It’s easier to develop ideas when the topic is narrowed down. Questions narrow the topic. Additionally, they make reviewing easier because of structuring your entries.
Journaling is about making your life better, not fighting writer’s block.
Avoid blank pages by asking yourself questions to improve the structure and content of your journal.
Make It Yours
If you don’t like my ideas about journaling — fuck them.
Journal must serve only you. Only your reasons for writing matter. The more you personalize your journal, the more probably you’ll stick to writing it.
Choose your rhythm.
The more you’re engaged in writing, the better. You know what you want. Use your journal to find out why and how.
You can use my tips for inspiration or come up with yours. Remember that you can always come back here for more.
Give your journal a purpose that makes you want to write it.
Takeaway
Journaling is simple.
But we love to overcomplicate things. That’s why you have me. I went through complicated stuff, and now I give you the distilled essence of how to journal.
Remember, it’s about you.
Know why you want to journal. I do it for understanding myself, and I recommend you try it. Life feels more fulfilling when you know what you are. You stop the constant fight with your thoughts.
Write what is on your heart, and go for consistency.
The more opportunities you have to reflect, the better you get. And it’s beneficial in making your life better. You act, observe and adjust.
To let yourself be you, keep your journal private.
Get brutally honest. Most people don’t handle that kind of honesty. You write to help yourself, not to please others.
Start now if you haven’t yet.
Spend five minutes a day journaling. You’ll improve with time.
And avoid staring at the blank page.
Gather some interesting questions about your day. Then when you journal, answer them. You’ll get easier reviews and more insights too.
Enjoy it.
Don’t miss your chance and transform your life through journaling.
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