A Beginner’s Guide to Effective Journaling: The What’s, Why's, How’s, When’s & Where’s of Journaling
Do you think you know everything about you? If so, can you answer these questions and introduce yourselves?
Who are you? What do you want from your life generally?
Imagine you’re in 2025 and 2035. Where are you? What are you doing? Are you living your dream life?
Who were you 5 years ago? Were you happy then? Are you happy now?
If you were able to answer the above questions at ease without any difficulties or thinking then congratulations.
If you found it difficult to answer these basic questions about you, don’t worry, continue reading. I will help you.
What is Journaling?
Journaling is primarily maintaining a dairy or a note book in which one pours out their feelings and events from their life. So is writing a diary and maintaining a journal same?
No, it is not. I will tell you why. A diary is maintained to note down the daily activities and all the events happened in that day. Like right from waking up till night before going to bed we can note everything down. That would be called as maintaining a diary. But writing in a journal is more to do with how we feel than just logging one’s day to day happenings.
In journal, we get to connect with our deepest feelings and thoughts and it will help us find who we are and who we want to be. Yes you can get answers to many difficult questions in your life by maintaining a journal.
So, will journaling only help me find myself and nothing much? Absolutely not, there are so many benefits of journaling and reasons why one should maintain a journal to see visible results in their daily lives.
Let’s see a few reasons now.
Why should you start Journaling?
“Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing but life-expanding.” – Jen Williamson
There are so many benefits of maintaining a journal. Let me share 6 main reasons with you today.
1. It gives you clarity
Finding your purpose and clarity can be difficult for many of you. You may often find yourself confused and overthinking about career, personal and professional choices you make. Maintaining a journal will help you get clarity as you pour your feelings out. When you re-visit those pages, you will find a new you who you can connect with a lot and will find answers to many questions. Now this cannot be shown theoretically, it had to be practically done to feel all that. I will tell you how to maintain a journal at the end of this blog post.
2. 25% increase in performance
According to a study at Harvard Business School, the participants who maintained a journal at the end of the day found a 25% increase in their performance compared to those other participants who did not journal. “Together, our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey: “We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.”
3. Improves sleep
When you start writing continuously and share your feelings with your journal, you will stop worrying slowly and start getting clarity day by day. This will make you feel relaxed which in turn will help you get sound sleep. If you are suffering from insomnia, don’t think much, start journaling.
4. Improves cognitive abilities
When you write about your feelings or experiences, it’s called reflective writing. You reflect on your thoughts and note it in your journal. This reflective writing will help reducing negative thoughts and any violent notions you may have. These improvements will in turn help in improving your cognitive abilities including your ability to deal with any future stress you may encounter.
5. Helps to recover from traumatic and stressful events
After a traumatic or any bad experience people often hide themselves and never show the real part of them to this world again. That one time experience will haunt them forever and slowly start disturbing how they feel and behave. One may not be able to share their fear or feelings honestly with someone else just because of the fear of betrayal or judgment. In all those situations, a journal will be your best companion you could ask for and pour your heart out without any second thoughts or hesitations.
6. Improves communication skills
While you write you think of the words to write and try to associate those words with your feelings, your brain is activated and this motor exercise is a way to train your brain. This will in turn help in the improvement of the communication skills.
What and why part of Journaling is explained. Let’s dive into the When, Where and How part of Journaling.
When should you journal?
Honestly there is no right time here. You can journal first thing in the morning to feel motivated and energized or you can journal at night to feel relaxed and go straight to sleep with light heart. You can also carry your journal around and write when you feel like you want to share your thoughts with someone. It’s completely up to you when it comes to ‘when you should journal’ part.
Where should you journal?
Again this also depends on you. If you don’t like noisy environments then journaling at night in your place would be the better idea. If you don’t mind a little noise, you can also write in a café or office or college. You can start your day by journaling in your study table too, which is one of the best ways to do.
“Because paper has more patience than people. – Anne Frank”
How should you journal?
The journal is your own personal space and is not meant to be read by others. So, just be free and be the real you and start writing whatever you feel and start writing about any thoughts you have at the moment.
If you have so many thoughts and don’t know how to journal or if you’re a complete beginner, don’t worry. There are so many prompts available in internet and you can use them to start your journaling.
There are productivity prompts, self-love prompts, relationship prompts and so many.
Prompts are basically like questions in certain aspect and you have to answer them. This will help you jot down your thoughts easily. By regular practice you will connect with your inner-self and will be able to answer the questions above easily without any doubts.
Though the prompts are easily available on internet, it may be difficult to start our journaling process, just because we don’t have a proper system to maintain or writing down the questions at one time and answering them later might not be so efficient.
That’s why I have designed ‘The Ultimate Digital Journal + Diary’ so that you can log your daily happenings and pour your heart out at one place. For all those people who love writing in a pen and paper, you can take a printout of this journal and start writing. Click here to watch the video of how to use the Journal.
For all those digital people out there, you can save it in your phones, laptops or personal computers and start typing. If you have an iPad or tab, you can just write on the journal using your stylus or S-pens.
The best part is, you have daily prompts so that you can stay consistent and it’s a perfect product for both the beginner’s and pro’s at journaling. I have kept the design minimal so that you will not be distracted by any cute emoji’s or stickers.
You can get this Journal for only 449/- INR. Click here to grab your copy of this efficient Journal + Diary.
I can't wait for you to get your copy and make the best use of it. You can also gift this Journal to your friends and family who love Journaling. This would be the best gift for them.
Happy Journaling!
Enjoy your Weekend.
See you all next week with another interesting post.
Until then, Take Care
BuBye.
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