How Does Journaling Help?
Journaling is a huge trend right now and everyone’s talking about the benefits of journaling and the right way to journal to enjoy these benefits. But how exactly does journaling help? The answer may surprise you!
Before you actually start with writing in a journal, it’s hard to imagine how you could possibly benefit from this activity. What exactly does journaling do and how does it help you?
It’s only after you get started and you keep journaling consistently that you will be able to fully understand how journaling helps with different areas of your life. In fact I would go so far as to say journaling can change your life.
Before I started I was skeptical too. I read a lot about journaling but my burning question was of course, ‘how does journaling help?’
I got my answer from an unexpected source – Robin Sharma. In his book, ‘The Mastery Manual’ Robin Sharma talks a lot about journaling and how it helps. I’m a huge Robin Sharma fan so I thought, well there may be something to this after all and I decided to give it a shot.
I admit I struggled at first. I did not know what to write and I was simply not motivated to write in my journal consistently when I did not see immediate benefits. But I kept at it, partly because I was curious to see whether it really made a difference.
It took a while, a few months actually, before I began to get into it and write in a journal every day. After a while, I started to notice little things that I realized stemmed from my practice of journaling daily.
For me, the most profound difference it made is that it helped me heal from a major personal set back. More on that another time but for now, let’s take a look at how journaling can help YOU.
Whether you’re dealing with anxiety and depression, or simply going through a rough patch in life, journaling can serve as a free and entirely self-managed form of therapy that’s can be more effective than you can imagine.
In fact, keeping a journal can be beneficial even when you’ve managed to reach and maintain a state of emotional balance and mental peace.
These are just a few of several, significant ways that journaling acts as therapy and can help change your life.
Evokes a Sense of Mindfulness
Far too often, we move from day to day without ever stopping to ‘smell the roses’. Not only do we fail to feel and express gratitude for the many wonderful things that that are happening in our lives, but we also tend to overlook the many learning opportunities that are right there in front of us.
Writing in a journal forces us to stop and reflect on seemingly minor events that might otherwise go overlooked. It evokes a strong sense of mindfulness and prompts you to notice the positive and negative things in your life.
During the process of writing about your day and your interactions with others, you may notice negative patterns repeating themselves in your thoughts and deeds. You may get insight into personal needs that you haven’t been paying attention to or you may realize that the source of your stress is your boss at work.
As you write and read back on your notes, you will see trends emerge and these trends will give you insight into the root of your problems. You will also get insight into the things that make you happy.
Establishes a Positive Mindset
When you keep a journal, you have the power to fill it with any type of material that you choose. Spending time to reflect on the small blessings in life can help you make that shift from a negative and self-defeating mindset into a more positive and proactive one.
You might be swimming in debt, struggling in your inter-personal relationships or barely hanging on at your job. But on the other hand, you also have several other blessings that you ought to be grateful for. Not saying you should ignore those issues – they need to be addressed and resolved so you can move forwards. Where journaling helps is in preventing you from getting overwhelmed with those problems.
Focusing on things that establish you as stronger, smarter and more persevering than the problems you’re facing at the present moment will give you the strength and the right attitude to keep pushing forward.
Encourages You to Create & Maintain Goals
Journals are great tools for overall life planning. At first, it may sound incredulous. I too was skeptical at first. But if you’ve ever wondered how some people seem to have their lives figured out, chances are, they are probably keeping journals with their goals written out.
The thing about writing your goals in your journal is that they keep you accountable.
The best part about using a journal to establish and pursue life goals is that this process can be an entirely informal one. This is merely a platform for bouncing ideas around and helping them take shape. Once you’re ready to make an actual commitment to a new life goal, you can always take notes from your journal and use them to draft a more formal plan.
Enhances Your Creative Potential
The act of journaling can be an incredibly creative process as well. Think about it, you are not just writing about the things that have happened or are happening in your life. You are also writing about the way in which you want things to be. This flexes your imagination, enhances your creative skills, and promotes new and far more interesting ways of thinking.
For some people, journaling has even given rise to some fairly impressive works of fiction and fan fiction. If you are a writer or aspire to be one, a journal gives you ample private space for writing without fear of judgment.
Improves Your Communication Skills
Better communication skills are one of the more notable among the very long list of benefits that regular journaling can provide. The practice of writing about your thoughts and feelings will make you more adept in issuing thoughtful responses.
It will also improve your emotional intelligence, making you better able to respond to the wants and needs of others in an empathetic way.
How about you? Why do you want to start journaling? How do you think it will change your life?
