Guide to Journaling 101

Journaling has provided comfort and clarity to many people throughout the years. Now, it is time for you to experience the benefits of keeping a journal, too!

But does keeping a journal really help? Is it worth your time? The easy answer is YES!

I wish I had known this many years ago when I first left Home in the North East of England – I was 24 and had been teaching for 3 years. I got itchy feet for something new and joined the British Forces Education Service Overseas.

They decided that I would be best as a Primary teacher in a junior school in Germany! I had a one-way ticket to Muenster in Westphalia Germany.

I guess my itchy feet were taking me further than I had planned on! Here I am over 40 years later and really wishing I had done some journaling back then!

I would have known what I was thinking, what did I worry about, how did I fit in and what was teaching in a Nissan Hut like for a teacher and 30 kids! My journal would have been a memoir of all of those marvelous things I have no memories about!!

In this Guide, I will cover exactly why keeping a journal is important and how you can get started today!

Why is Keeping a Journal Important?

A journal itself symbolizes someone’s internal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. That symbol is the focus for thoughts and emotions that we don’t share with someone else – but feel better after writing them down.

Keeping a journal gives you a window into the structure of your own life, inside your mind, depicting your thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

This is a wonderful advantage and the purpose of journaling, but it’s not the only one. Keeping a journal provides many important, practical applications like:

Journaling Helps You to Log Your Experiences. Keeping a journal allows you to take note of your own life experiences. Your actions, reactions, and behaviors are all accounted for. This allows you to reflect and remember what was and now is important to you.

Keeping a journal allows you to express yourself. Writing down how you are feeling or what you are thinking daily lets you get things off your shoulders. It also gives you the chance to express your true thoughts to the one person who will understand exactly what you mean: Yourself!

Writing in your journal provides you with the ability to reflect. Observing your feelings allows you to see patterns you may not be aware of in your own behavior. Providing you with clarity, mindfulness, perspective, accountability, and growth.

Health Benefits

While journaling helps you to document your thoughts, feelings, and ideas, it also aids your health. Your physical, mental, and emotional health all benefit from expressing yourself through writing.

It allows you to express any negative emotions or thoughts you are having about people or events.

But what are the benefits of keeping your own journal?

One of the great benefits of journaling is that it helps to reduce stress over time. Conveying your stressors onto paper allows you to let go and reflect later once the feeling has passed.

Sometimes things that seem like a mountain to overcome become molehills once written down and reflected on. This gives you insight on how you can eliminate stresses in your life and react more productively in the future.

Journaling additionally helps to keep your memories fresh and clear. This key factor has shown in many studies to aid cognitive thought and memory capacity.

Getting Personal About The Benefits Of Journaling

Another reason I wish I had journaled throughout my life is that at one time I lived on a very unusual island for a year and a half. In the early 1980s, the island was Ascension Island.

It just so happened to become a particularly important spot in the Falklands War logistics. This island was halfway from UK to Ascension Island and the perfect spot to park a number of Destroyers, Cruisers, and an Aircraft Carrier, too.

The Airforce soon joined them and the Paratroop Regiment as well. Now if ONLY I had journaled then, just think of the memories and tales I could tell.

There is no way to remember all of the exciting and sad things that happened that 18 months in my life. Nor the stress that was sometimes involved living on an island only 7 miles long that was also a dead volcano!

If I would have journaled during this time of my life, my memories would be fresh and clear!

Recording your thoughts and feelings gives you a better sense of self awareness. Journaling has proven to promote an overall happiness and wellbeing for people who practice it regularly.

Last but not least, keeping a journal is recommended by many to help manage anxiety. This is because it allows you to release that anxiety onto paper.  Journaling also shows what triggers anxiety for you and helps you avoid it in the future.

What To Consider Before Starting

Many people see journaling as unimportant. But, to the contrary, it is a vital part of expressing your thoughts and recording your life for yourself.

Think of it this way: You want to exercise your body to stay fit and health, right? Well, journaling is an outlet for exercising your mind, emotions, and self-reflection.

These aspects of life are just as important as physical health. And it’s very easy to get started keeping your own journal. (no physical exercise required!)

What should I journal about daily? Just give yourself time each day or every few days to write down your feelings, experienced, hopes, or dreams. You can journal about anything that is important to you.

This is your time to be with yourself. Also, as I have experienced, you never know when life might change for one reason or another.

It just doesn’t have to be because you moved. Just think about our last year with the Covid 19 and all of the restrictions and changes to our lives that were a consequence of that virus.

That would have been a perfect year to spend time journaling. Everyone’s life changed!

Different Journal Options Out There

You also have a few choices when it comes to what you will use to journal in. You can obviously buy a notebook and leave it at that.

But another great tool is a customized journal that reflects your unique self. You can affordably resource your very own new journal from places like Etsy, Redbubble, Amazon Merch, and from – yours truly!

You can treat yourself to a journal that is monogrammed in your personal letter for your first or second name.Not only can you get yourself a blank journal but there are also guided journals. This type of journal is styled to meet the specific needs of what you are wanting to use it for.

For example, if you are looking to lower your anxiety, try out our Self Care No Worries Anxiety Planner & Journal. This journal is designed to help you find what may trigger your anxiety and how to avoid those triggers and gives some specific help for those who suffer from constant worrying.

This also helps you to know yourself better, notice your reactions, and allow you to make beneficial alterations for a brighter future.

How to Keep Your Own Journal

How long should you journal for? A good system to hold to, regardless of what type of journal you use, is to plan time for yourself to write. Allowing yourself 5 to 20 minutes each day to write in your journal.

Set a time for yourself daily and keep to it. Eventually, you will cherish your time with your lovely journal and the act of putting pen to paper.

Is it better to journal in the morning or at night? Honestly, it depends on what works best for you. Many people prefer either the morning time (morning people) or the nighttime (night people).

Whichever time you feel is the best time to express yourself then that is the time you should do so. It doesn’t have to be a long amount of time and there isn’t a teacher hovering over you to make comments on your spelling or handwriting.

So let yourself go and just write!

Regardless of what time, method, or how long you journal, it is most important that you actually do journal. It’s all about maintaining the practice of journaling for yourself each day, allowing yourself time and thought.

Develop this as a new habit. Habits are good for you and set your day up for success.

Should You Keep Your Old Journals?

A final thought in keeping your own journal is: Should old journals be kept or thrown out?

Once again, this is something that is completely up to you. I believe that any journal you keep is a memoir of what you’ve experienced and felt.

And as I have said, how I wish I had journaled all those years ago when I was young and life was full of surprises. I would have had memoirs to feed my nostalgia for the past.

A journal captures a moment of time – a bit like a photograph but with far deeper meaning.

This little (or big) journal, no matter how old, has a piece of you within its pages. And if you are a book reader like me, you should have no trouble finding a shelf to hold those evergreen memories in.

Think of it like this: Even if you had a difficult past year, felt down or negative frequently, that journal contains all of those feelings. Now, you can examine those past experiences to make changes that lead to better outcomes this year.

Different Types Of Journals You Can Use

There are many different types of journaling out there in the world. You can pretty much journal to record anything in life you feel is worth documenting!

Some of the most popular forms of journaling are:

Personal Journal

Keeping a personal journal allows you to write down details about your life, feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

5 Minute Question Prompt Journal

These types of journal are ideal for anyone looking to practice daily mantras. For example, you can use questions like these: 1) What am I grateful for? 2) What can I do for myself to make today a better day? 3) What can I do for others to make today a better day?

                                       

You can also prompt yourself to create a daily affirmation to boost your confidence. This will help to remind you who you are and what you are going to accomplish.

Writing these things down helps you to focus on the good things in life, not the bad. Remembering the good helps you see that the bad really isn’t that bad at all.

Just a possible advantage for tomorrow to be a better day.

Dream Journal

A Dream journal is a notebook specifically meant for you to write down the dreams you experience. It is better to write in your dream journal right after you wake. This is because you want to write about your dream while it is still fresh in your memory.

Art Journal

If you are the artistic type, you will love creating an Art journal.

This type of journal is similar to the personal one, the only difference is you add your own artwork, graphics that you love, and inspiration inside.

This is a wonderful way to express your artsy side and bring beautiful color to your journal pages.

Professional Journal

A professional journal leans towards just that, the professional field. These tend to be more important for professions such as lawyers, engineers, accountants, doctors, and teachers.

BUT the process used to create these journals can be utilized by anyone to develop something for more literal purposes.

Start Journaling Today

In closing, journaling is a wonderful practice to incorporate into your daily life. It not only aids health, it provides an outlet for you to let go and express your true self.

Start journaling for yourself today and begin to experience the benefits in your own life. Journaling really does help, and it is absolutely time well spent.

And I am going to take my own advice and order one of my journals today! I shall get one of the Monogrammed ones and begin to journal regularly.

After all you never know what will happen in the next year and you can never get that time back!

Happy Journaling!!