Photo: aepoc, Flickr
Expressing yourself through writing has many benefits. From self-discovery to personal healing, writing can help you learn about yourself as you revisit key events and moments that impacted your life in a significant way. Journaling can be a motivating, freeing and enlightening experience, depending on how regularly you practice it. In some cases, it can even be therapeutic or healing. It can even be a tool to relieve stress.
For many people, journaling is keeping an account of every little thing happening in their day-to-day life. While this is a good thing, you can actually get more out of journaling than just merely chronicling your life.
Some benefits of journaling
1. Journaling lets you set goals for yourself—and keep track of how you’re meeting them.
Your journal can become less about events and more about aspects of your growing life. It can be a repository of your musings, ideas, goals, problems, and successes. You can use it to help you achieve your goals and track your progress as you achieve those goals.
2. You can gain wisdom from your documented challenges, mistakes and setbacks.
You can revisit the days wherein you encountered a setback—for example, a business deal that backfired. You can recapture your thinking process, learn from your mistakes, and gain a new perspective on how to handle that type of situation in the future. This can help you out when you encounter similar problems in the future, but on a higher scale. Looking back at past challenges that you’ve hurdled can be extremely motivating, because you can see how much stronger you’ve become as a person.
3. You can see how much you’ve changed through time.
Journaling can help you trace how your life has changed through time. If you look back in your journal, you can see how you handled certain challenges. You can capture your emotions during a period of success, for example, or recall words of wisdom uttered by someone you looked up to.
4. You can write down lessons learned, as you get through a situation.
Another powerful reason to journal is to record lessons you learned through time. For example: You can have a portion in your journal called “Lesson learned,” and write down a particular life lesson you picked up because of a particular situation. When you look back through your journal, you can recall these lessons, in case you may have forgotten to apply them.
How to maximize your journaling
1. Write often.
Maintain a journaling routine. Write daily, every other day or weekly, but write consistently. You’ll be able to track your thoughts and reflections better when they are recorded regularly.
2. Write honestly.
When you write in your journal, let the words flow freely. You don’t have to censor yourself when you write, especially when you want to express your emotions fully. If you want to curse to release some negative thoughts, then write those words down. Tell life like it is. Doing so will help you recapture your personality and disposition at a certain point in time, which can help you learn about yourself and improve on yourself.
3. Get a journal that you will enjoy writing in.
Write in a journal that you feel comfortable with. It’s got to inspire you and make you want to write in it. Because journaling involves passion, it’s essential to write in a journal that keeps you motivated. Some best-selling journals are Moleskine, MomAgenda (which are journals specifically tailored to moms), and the eco-friendly EcoSystem journal planner. Find one that suits your personality; make it yours by writing freely in it on a regular basis.
About Martine De Luna
I'm a freelance writer, editor, blogger and former preschool teacher. Married with one kid, I'm a work-at-home mom, but most of all, a mom-in-the-works. I'm a work in progress, and I believe that living intentionally day by day will help me become the best mom for my child.
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