If you are reading this, I imagine you are either a) trying to start journaling, b) looking for a community around journaling/ writing, or c) looking for people who have done this for a longer time (and not just as a trend). However you came here, I applaud you for your interest. Let’s talk about it.

I’m going to be addressing just some simple questions that I imagine would pop up about journaling in general. I’ll answer these

• What is journaling? (what do I mean by journaling)
• How do you journal for a long time?
• What are the benefits of journaling?
• and more personally… Will I keep journaling?

What I mean by journaling:

Journaling is a practice of writing in a journal regularly. I typically write in a specific lined notebook every day. The topics of your writing are up to you entirely. If you find the open-ended approach to journaling frustrating, I would recommend starting with these topics.

a) Track your habits.

b) Write about your days!

c) If you are having anxious episodes, write it all down! I would highly recommend looking at Julia Cameron’s Morning pages

d) If writing is hard, doodle. Draw a cup of water. The point is to show up, so let it be easy.

How I did it:

Habits are cool because once they’re in motion, you want to keep them going for as long as possible. I picked a place, a time, and an activity; then I did it.

I wanted to write in my journal every day, so I planned to write in a single black spiral spine notebook every morning around 7:30 am on my couch as I have my morning coffee. When I started writing this journal, I also was starting a couple other habits, where I would brush my teeth right after getting out of bed, take a vitamin, and start a load of laundry. I did a lot of this while my water was boiling to make coffee.

To fill the first couple pages, I oftentimes would just write about the habits I was trying to keep, and if I broke the chain on any of them, I would write about why it happened, and reflect on if I wanted to keep doing it. This helped a great deal with filling it up.

Benefits?

Journaling has really become a cornerstone habit for me, where if I don’t journal right when I wake up, I feel grumpy and disorganized all day. I think journaling lends itself really naturally to a lifestyle based around intentional habit forming, and general reflection. I see all of this as beneficial to my life.

I love writing, and it was a great deal due to journaling that I’ve found myself writing and reading 100 times more than I had been right after graduating from college.

Will I continue?

I definitely want to. Maybe it’s just to keep the chain going as long as I can, but I really do feel it’s helped me to write more and to write better. Hopefully, you’ll feel a similar way. If you end up doing this, I would love to hear from you.