Here is 18 powerful journaling techniques to make you life better and guide you in your personal growth.
You have probably heard of all the self-improvement benefits of journaling. And maybe you even went out and got a journal of your own. But now you don’t know where to start…This blog post is for you!
Personal growth is a long process and one that isn’t easy either. It requires you to become in-tune with how you are feeling and reflect on your life, experiences and feelings. Keeping a journal can make this process much easier.
Journaling is about getting your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and emotions out on a piece of paper in order to help and guide you in the process.
To make the process easier, I have gathered 18 of the most powerful journaling techniques to start doing right now.
18 Journaling Techniques
1. Free Writing
This journaling technique is the most common but also the most simple. Sit down with a blank page and start writing. Write down all your thoughts as they come.
You can start by writing how you are feeling and then reflect on those feelings. Then, talk about the path of your life, what you like and the thoughts you have.
The beauty in free writing is that it lets you express what you have to say without the fear and anxiety of self-criticism or other’s opinions.
This is time alone with you and your thoughts. You have full control and creativity. It is a completely safe space.
2. Journaling For Clarity
Sometimes life can get crazy and your brain becomes scattered. This is the perfect time to take out your journal and write until you get clarity and structure.
Write every single thought as you have it.
You can either sit down in one setting and write it all out or, you can keep a running list in a notebook or on your phone. Creating a running list is useful if there is too much stuff to remember. Often times when your brain gets cluttered, it’s because it is joggling a lot of information and reminders. The best thing to do in this situation is write it down and get it out of your mind and onto a piece of paper. This helps because:
- You gets the thoughts out of your head.
- You don’t have to remember everything.
- Having a visual to look at helps you organize and de-clutter all your thoughts.
3. Mind Improvement
This journaling technique is meant to improve your mind by opening your mind so it isn’t thinking so narrowly or closed off.
You can do this in 2 ways:
- Think about how you can make someone else happy. This will get the focus off yourself and put it toward making someone else happy.
- Think of something that you have never noticed in your environment. For example: a tree in your front yard, a stain on the rug, etc. This question helps to draw you into the present instead of focusing on the past or future.
4. Daily Reflections
Daily reflections is another very common journaling technique that a lot of people utilize. This helps to feel gratitude and happiness with your days, as well as reflect on your experiences. Daily reflections aren’t suppose to be a long novel, rather, a short, 10 minute reflection of your day.
Common Daily Reflection Questions:
- What excited me?
- What drained me of energy?
- How do I feel the day went?
- What did I learn?
- What are 5 things I’m grateful for?
- Did I do anything that lead me a step closer to my goals?
5. Lifestyle & Habit Improvement
Personal growth comes from change. It comes from becoming something better that what you are now. However, change is hard and you need to constantly work for change.
A lifestyle and habit journal can help you help track of those lifestyle changes and habits you want to form/break in order to see personal growth. If you want to create a new habit, track it. Track your progress and log it in your journal everyday you work toward it.
This type of journaling is good for anyone wanting to form a new habit or make a change in their life.
One strategy is to list out everything you did in the day. Then, mark if that action helped you grow or prohibited you from improving. By the end of the day, the list of actions that helped you will hopefully be more than the list of things that stopped you. After a week, reflect on your actions. If the same things are prohibiting you from moving forward each day, that may be a sign to stop doing them.
6. Coping Technique For Negative Events That Happened
Unpleasant events are evitable and bad things may happen. Everything isn’t always going to turn out the way you would like and your life may take a turn that you don’t like. Writing out your feelings is a positive way of coping and releasing those feelings.
Think of these questions:
- How would I comfort a friend if this happened to them?
- What is the positivity that may come from this?
7. Journaling for Anxiety
This technique can help you identify those things that are giving you anxiety and find ways to calm down.
Start by dividing your page into three parts. One section is for fears, one is for fixes, and one is what you think the outcome will be. This last column is to make you realized that your anxiety is just anxiety and the likeliness of some of your worries is very low.
For example, I have recently started getting anxiety on airplanes. I start worrying about the engine blowing out, the wing coming off, or the plane just straight up crashing. However, these fears are so unrealistic. The odds of any of those things happening is so low that it is unnecessary to worry about them.
8. To-do List
This technique is quite simple. You make a list of all the things you need to do and all your committed obligations for the day, week or month. You can then label them into a few categories:
- What is non-negotiable?
- What am I excited to do?
- Out of all the things on my to-do list, what will make my life easier if it’s done?
- What 20% of activities are producing 80% of the results?
9. Decision Making
If you need to make a decision and can’t decide on what option to take, this technique will help create clarity and guidance for those decision.
Start by listing all the options. Then answer this one question:
If I had to make this decision in 60 seconds, what would I choose?
Set a timer for 60 seconds and make a decision and provide an explanation why you choose that option.
The purpose of this is to figure out your immediate answer without all the overthinking. People tend to over-complicate decisions and this techniques helps you tap into your intuition. You intuition is really powerful and often times, the right decision.
After you made that initial decision, you can reflect on that decision. A good way to do this is by asking yourself, could I live with this outcome?
10. Creating Direction in Life
This technique will help you understand what you want in your life and where might you want to go next? Again, there are a few questions you can ask yourself in order to understand your direction in life.
- What did I want 5 years ago?
- What do I want right now?
- 5 years from now, what might I want?
Journaling gives you a safe space to write down anything you want to become. The person you want to be, the job you want to have, and relationships you want to make. Nothing is out of reach. And the beauty in journaling is that only you have to see it. So don’t be scared about what other people will think or if you are going to fail. If failing didn’t exist, what would you try to do?
11. Art Journal
For all my creative spirits, an art journal is a great way to unlock and express your thoughts in a visual format. Some people refer expressing themselves with words, however, for those of you that express your thoughts in drawings, stretches, and visual inspirations, this is the perfect technique for you.
An art journal is very unstructured. There is no right or wrong way with this journaling technique.
An art journal can be a mix of words and drawings. It is simply another way of expressing yourself and your thoughts.
You are able to explore your creativity, keep track of new ideas and plan your days.
You don’t have to be an exceptional drawer in order to keep an art journal. We all have creativity within ourselves and this can be a great way to find your own.
12. Reading Round-up
A reading round-up allows you to get more out of the books, articles or blog posts you read. (It could even help with this very post. You can write about your favorite journaling techniques that you want to try.)
Writing them down is a great way to look back on your notes and allows you to have a spot for anything you want to remember. This could include:
- Key points
- Inspirational quotes
- Insights and technical information
- Beautiful passages
- A list of books/novels you wish to read
A reading round-up gives you space to write notes because it also gives you space to reflect, review and dive deep into what you are reading and in theory, help you understand the concept and information.
13. Positive Affirmation Journaling
Sometimes journaling can turn into a rant or a wave of negative energy. While it is important to express those negative emotions at times, positive affirmation journaling focuses on the positives. Focus your attention on what you are grateful for and all the good that is happening in your life or around you.
Although life can seem harsh at times, the world is filled with so much good. Creating these positive affirmations will help boost your mood and improve your view on life.
Positive affirmations mean projecting positive energy into the world much like manifestation.
14. Letter to Your Future Self
Writing a letter to your future self is a great way to understand what you want to do in your life. This technique is really valuable if you need direction and are feeling stuck in your life.
The best way to go about this is to thinking about yourself in 5-10 years. Envision where you will be and what perspective you will have. Other things you may want to include are:
- A summary of your current self: How old are you? What do your days consist of? How do you feel? Include your family, important relationships, your values and beliefs, etc.
- Talk about your short-term and long-term goals.
- Ask yourself questions for your future self to reflect on. Some examples include: Did you reach those long-term goal? Do you have a new dream? Are you happy?
While you start writing this letter, it can help lead you to the path you want to take and the direction you want your life to go. Hopefully by the end, you will feel clarity.
Then, when you are done with your letter, seal it up and store it somewhere safe.
Remember…Have fun with it and get personal!
15. Morning Pages
Morning pages is probably ones of the simplest journaling techniques you can do but has the biggest effect on your everyday life and productivity.
The goal behind journaling in the morning is to set your intentions for the day. It is a time where you can de-clutter your head and organize your day in order to have the most productive and efficient day. By slowing down and journaling, it will let your feel more in control of how your day is going to go.
Some morning prompt include:
- Today, I am excited to…
- How do I want to feel going to bed tonight?
- What are the most important things I need to get done today?
- Today, I am challenged by…
Sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and a notebook and just write it out.
16. Goal Journal
A goal journal is record of your progress toward your goals. It is a journal all about you and your goals.
The first step is in keeping a goal journal to of course…set goals.
If you want to learn more about goal setting, click here.
If you want to make a change or accomplish something, keeping a goal journal is a great way to do that. It will not only track your progress but keep you accountable and motivated. Update your journal everyday or every time you have accomplished something toward that goal. Overtime, you will be able to see how far you have come and how much more you have to go.
17. Stress Relief Journal
When in doubt, write it out. If you feeling stress, write about it. Writing out your feelings is a great way to relieve some of those negative feelings and tension.
When you are stressed, it can be really hard to effective communicate your feelings verbally or to someone else. This would be a great time to write your feelings and get it all out. This can help you organize your thoughts, relieve tension and calm your mind.
You may even begin to form solutions and ways to decrease your stress level.
18. Bucket lists
The last of the journaling techniques is the bucket list. Keeping a bucket list always feels so exciting. It creates a sense of excitement and happiness for the future. Coming up with ideas and dreams to add to your bucket list is the easiest part. While, completing the things all the list may be more challenging and take time.
However, if you are struggling to come up with things to add to your bucket list, consider these questions:
- If I could visit any five destinations in my life, what would they be and why?
- What fears do I wish to face and how can I do that?
- What types of accomplishments do I want people to remember me by?
Making a bucket list journal is a great way to ensure you live the life you want and as fully as possible.
There you have it! 18 journaling techniques that will change your life and an spark personal growth. All you have to do is get started!
References:
Vanilla Papers – Journaling Techniques
She Owns Success – Personal Development & Journaling Techniques
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