How to Get Past Day 1 of Your Journaling Habit
Journaling is a powerful self-reflection tool that can help you stay balanced in mind, body, and soul. It’s so much more than just recording the mundane thoughts and tasks of your daily life. Journaling can help you achieve your goals, help you make the best decisions for yourself and help you notice patterns in yourself where you tend to self-sabotage your own happiness.
Having some quiet time each day to decompress is something many people look forward to, but getting started with the habit of journaling can prove to be a bit daunting. The pressure of trying to fill the blank page in front of you might feel stressful and unproductive.
We have some simple tips to help you get past the first day of your journaling practice to help you turn it into a full-fledged habit. With practice, your journal will become an emotional outlet and a generator of positive energy to fuel your passions in life.
Why Keep a Journal?
Your journal is a place where you can be honest with your deepest feelings and write down your biggest dreams. Your journal is your safe place. Use it as a reminder of your goals so you can stay the course and track your progress. It’s a place where you can work through any setbacks or perspectives that are limiting you. Journaling is often integral to manifest what we desire. Usually, journaling involves sitting in a reflective and meditative state for periods of time, allowing you to relax and your creativity and intuition to take the wheel. Journaling is like having a conversation with the Universe to send out a text to the cosmos that says, “I’m ready for this, let’s make it happen.”
You can use your journal to capture your intuitive insights about the people in your life to help you understand your relationships better and begin to improve them. In many ways, journaling can help improve your relationships and your ability to shape your own destiny. In a journal, you are literally writing your own life’s story.
Write Your Story
Beyond being a record of your past and a tool for self-reflection, allow your journal to help you carve out your ideal future.
Try writing down a goal from the perspective that you’ve already reached this goal in the form of a gratitude. This further opens up the possibility for that goal to manifest into your life. For example, if you want a specific job, write, “I am grateful for my job as a ________.” You could also use this method to manifest certain qualities such as, “I am grateful for my strong intuition.” This is how we start to see the reality we want and it will start to manifest in this process.
Write down anything your soul seems to want you to know by just being still in your mind and listening. I love to sit down with my journal after a good meditation session and record any lightbulb moments or ideas that came to me during the meditation. Even if it seems like a random word or an image that doesn’t quite make sense, you’ll often find it plays a significant role in your near future. You may notice feelings bubbling up about your life path and decisions that you can make to align with more happiness and fulfillment. Now that sounds like a journaling session worth having.
The more consistent you are with your journaling, the more you’ll see that these techniques are very effective. That said, journal the way that works best for you. Your journal is your very own golden compass.
Concluding Thoughts…
This SELF Journal has daily questions to help you work towards your goals so that you can stay focused and watch your weekly and monthly progress. It’s like journaling on steroids! Find a journal that calls to you personally and exudes your personal style. If that doesn’t get you excited, set a reminder in your phone to journal so you’ll be able to make it a habit. If you find it boring, meet a friend for coffee and co-journaling time. You can also play music that inspires you to set the mood or even add some yummy incense and candles to the whole operation.
Journaling can be a sacred time to re-connect with yourself. Often the ego wants MORE and convinces us that what we have now is not enough. But the heart knows that we are enough, just as we are. Journaling can help you better your relationship with yourself as an avenue to practice self-love.
It’s time for you to pull out that journal (we know you have one lying around), find a comfortable place to sit, and take a few deep, relaxing breaths. Then, write your story. The pen is in your hand!
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