How to Build a Journaling Habit that Lasts

Even though keeping a journal is a proven way to foster deeper self-reflection and introspection, starting a new journaling habit can be difficult. Whether you’re looking to document your daily thoughts and experiences, or set and track goals, a regular journaling habit can have a profound impact on your mental and emotional well-being.

Whether you’re a seasoned writer or a complete novice to journaling, it can be hard to know where to begin. The good news is that building a journal habit doesn’t have to be complicated, although it does take some time and effort. With a few simple tips and tricks, you can make journaling a regular part of your daily routine and start reaping the benefits of the self-discovery and self-awareness that journaling provides.

A journaling habit is the practice of regularly writing down thoughts, feelings, and observations in a journal. Journaling can be considered a self-reflection practice that allows you to process your emotions and thoughts, reflect on your experiences, and gain insight into yourself and your life.

Journaling can be done in different forms, such as free-form writing, using journal prompts or questions, or using a specific journaling method like gratitude journaling or bullet journaling.

A journaling habit may mean writing a new journal entry every day or a few times a week. Some people journal for a few minutes a day, while others write for longer periods of time. The key is to make journaling a regular part of your daily or weekly routine by setting aside time for journaling on a regular basis.

So, what do you write? There are different approaches to writing, each of which can allow you to process your thoughts.

• Free writing: Open your journal and begin to write down whatever is on your mind. It can be something that happened, how you are feeling or any thought on your mind.
• Lists: This can be a list of goals, things you enjoy, budgets, affirmations. Writing lists can allow you to organize thoughts.
• Art journal: If you are an artistic person, you may find that drawing or painting will allow you to get in touch with your creativity and sense of expression. You could also draw art and write in the same journal.
• Bullet journaling: If you feel that you have a lot of different unrelated thoughts, you could write them out in bullet points. These can be ideas, errands, reminders and other thoughts that pop into your head and you do not want to forget.
• Reflection journal: If you had an experience that you keep thinking about, writing about it may help you process it and understand how you feel about it.
• Gratitude journal: Write down things you are grateful for.
• Worst-case scenario journaling: Write down what worries you and how that could lead to a worst-case scenario. Although this may look like a pessimistic approach, it may help you realize your fears and anxieties are irrational.

Working to be mindful of our thoughts and worries allows us to have more control over what thoughts we choose to pay mind to. While we can’t shut our brains off, we can learn to quiet the thoughts that aren’t helpful to us.

Through journaling, we are able to arrive at solutions that benefit our mental health and help us cope with the various problems we face in our day to day lives. Journaling invites a chance to organize the many thoughts that bounce around our minds, helping us to find solutions that may not have been previously evident.

Journaling also helps us practice and identify the coping skills that work best for us. By keeping track of the trials you face, how you chose to cope with them, and whether or not that skill benefitted you, you can quickly identify methods of coping that are (or aren’t) conducive to bettering your mental health. For example, if reminding yourself that practicing deep breathing worked to calm your anxiety earlier in the day, journaling about that experience and how it specifically helped may reinforce that practice for future use. Journaling allows you to gather research into your own mental health, helping you learn the best ways to calm yourself for different situations.

For many, journaling can be painful and boring. But it doesn’t have to be. You can look forward to your journaling practice and even complete it in as little as 15 minutes a day by incorporating these tips. When our days are filled with one thing after another clamoring for our attention, journaling helps us slow down and reconnect with ourselves. The harvest we reap is an awareness of ourselves and our circumstances, clarity of thought, and gratitude for life.

Which tip do you need to implement today to cultivate a journaling habit?