Why you should start journaling

“I will keep constant watch over myself and — most usefully — will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil — that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past.” — SENECA

On every New Year Eve, I always think about what I did that year. Other than a few moments, I hardly remember anything. Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don’t collect all these tiny successes and small happy moments, the big ones don’t really mean anything. The problem is we don’t remember these tiny successes

Am I a better person now? Am I growing personally and professionally? What did I do well, what I didn’t do well, and so on? I didn’t have answers to those questions.

“You improve what you measure”.

Since I am not measuring, I didn’t even know what I am doing well and what I should do better.

I have read a lot about journaling and its benefits. But never got around doing it. It’s like one of the things which you know it’s good for you, but you never do it.

Finally, from a sudden burst of motivation, started journaling 6 months back. Every night before going to bed, I put down my thoughts about that day in my journal. It was awkward in the beginning. Didn’t know what to write. Over a period, it got better and better and journaling becomes like talking to myself with ruthless honesty.

What is Journaling?

It's just a note for yourself. You can write about anything and everything which comes to your mind about your day. The core idea behind journaling is to put up your day in review, see how you did and what could be improved. Take time to consciously recall the events of the day; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Be unflinching in your assessments. Notice what contributed to your happiness and what detracted from it. What emotions you went through. Write down what you’d like to work on. By making the effort to record such thoughts, you’re less likely to forget them. A bonus: you’ll have a running tally to track your progress too.

Keep your own journal, whether it’s saved on an app or in a little notebook. I am old school, so I prefer pen and paper to apps for journaling.

1. Keep your thoughts organized.

Journaling helps you to organize your thoughts and make them apprehensible. You can record daily events, thoughts, and feelings about certain experiences or opinions.

2. Set & achieve your goals.

A journal is a good place to write your goals, ambitions, aspirations, and new year resolutions. By keeping them in a diary, you can monitor your progress and feel motivated to continue to focus on your next milestone!

3. Relieve stress

Writing down your feelings helps you to “brain-dump” your anxieties, frustrations, and pains in a journal. This can help you to reduce and release any stress which you have accumulated over time. Overall, expressing yourself in a diary is a good way to free up any tension that prevents you from feeling happy.

4. Allow yourself to self-reflect

As Ferris Bueller once said,

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Our fast-paced lives can become even more hectic as we start shouldering on more responsibility, making us feel the pressure as others place high expectations on us. This results in us getting frenzied as we are easily caught up with the day-to-day.

Journaling is a good way to help us to stop, take a step back, and reflect on ourselves. We can self-reflect on gratitude or what we did today and write it in our diary. We can look back at our life in a journal and think about how we’ve changed and what we can do to improve ourselves.

The other way journaling changed my life is that journaling allowed me to reflect on my own emotions before jumping to any conclusions. Sometimes I see myself becoming more upset than I need to be because my emotions get ahead of me and I fall into a dark circle fast. However, journaling has given me an outlet that allows me to reflect and think about my emotions before I jump to any conclusions.

5. It’s About Being Honest with Yourself

Journaling is and should be a highly intimate process in which you strip yourself bare. It is about being vulnerable. It is about being real and honest with yourself, for your own good.

Journaling has helped me improve my mindset towards the small moments and big moments in life.

I encourage journaling anyone and everyone. Whether or not you feel you have nothing to write about, I feel that journaling always helps you reveal new things about yourself. The things you learn about yourself can be big or small — everything is worth the short time it takes to journal.