The Practice of Journaling in Self-Improvement
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth
I have recently taken to the habit of journaling. I have come to appreciate the process of putting your thoughts on paper, and I hope I can convince you to do the same 🧠 📄
Why Journal?
Journaling as a practice has enormous benefits. The main one that attracted me, was that it helps declutter and lapidify your thoughts. In the modern internet age, there is a phenomena called information overload. If you don’t actively preserve them, your thoughts end up fleeting, and you lose so many potentially incredible ideas.
Journaling also helps in reflection, which is important in having a healthy mind. Writing down your emotions makes you more mindful and less reactive.
Believe it or not, journaling is also known to boost memory and comprehension!.after journaling consistently, you will be able to remember minor details about your day which may be cool to retrospect.
What do you need?
Not a lot. Just a book and a pen (you could also use a note-taking app like obsidian!) The process is pretty simple. Set a time when you will write a few words, and then just do it every day. It can be anything.
Here is a general rule-of-thumb you can use in your daily reviews
- How did I feel today?
- What cool experience did I have?
- What did I learn?
- How can I get better tomorrow?
Gratitude Journaling
Your mindset is the most important thing you physically have.
How you do one thing is how you do everything.
I have learned that writing down a thing that you are grateful for everyday generally improves your mood throughout the day, and also makes you more humble and content with the things you have
For example, today I am grateful for having access to the internet and interacting with like-minded people who make me better as a person.
Mind-on-paper mentality
This is a term that I like to use for putting emotions and experiences in a more permanent environment. If you have ever heard of the second brain, Essentially it helps you to organize and manage your thoughts more efficiently.
You must understand that your mind is not made for storing ideas, it is made for making new ones. Journaling helps you keep track of everything you learn and keeps your mind free of the burden of remembering information.
Consistency
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” — Dwayne Johnson
With every other self-improvement tool, journaling should become a habit. You must make it a point that no matter what, you must write a journal entry every day. This helps build discipline as well.
Review
Reviewing past journal entries is highly recommended. It is really fun to do personally, as it is an indicator of how much I have grown as a person (which is my main motivation). You can also do weekly and monthly review, where instead of thinking in the scale of days, you can review your entire week or month.