8 Tips for Meaningful Journaling This Year
How are you feeling? Overwhelmed with life? Or at an effervescent stage that you wish could last forever? Or maybe you’re on a metaphorical couch, watching life lumbering past? No matter how you’re feeling, journaling regularly is a practice that everyone can benefit from. Here are 8 Tips for Meaningful Journaling This Year that have helped me keep a more meaningful journal and, as a result, a more balanced self.
“The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.” –An old Chinese proverb
Tip 1: Gather the Proper Materials.
Buy an aesthetically pleasing journal. One that makes you smile each time you see it. And splurge on a really nice pen with smooth flowing ink. (My favorite happens to be one I borrowed from my 4-year-old daughter—shiny purple with a grape-sized plastic jewel on top—it makes me feel so fancy!) A grubby pen or one with piddly ink can be frustrating and distract your thought process. So don’t skimp on the pen!
Tip 2: Pick a time you prefer to journal.
Are you a lark, greeting the sunrise with coffee and a quiet journal entry? Or are you a lunch break scribbler? I personally journal right before bed to clear my mind from the day’s events and emotions. Picking a specific time of day to journal will help you remember to actually do it.
Tip 3: Pick a place to journal.
Once you know when you like to journal, find a designated place for your journal, close by where you will do your writing. If you suddenly want to write, but your journal isn’t within reach, you probably won’t get up to find it. If you write in bed, keep it on your nightstand. Or, if you prefer writing at the breakfast table, keep it in your kitchen with the cookbooks. If you prefer a cozy couch, keep it on the shelf in your living room. Wherever you like to write, keep your journal close by!
Tip 4: Adjust your mindset.
Think of meaningful journaling as free therapy, not as homework you have to complete reluctantly. Journaling can untangle an anxious mind and offer clarity. By writing out your problems, it forces you to slow your racing thoughts to the pace of your pen. Once you’re able to slow down your mind, that elusive answer often reveals itself.
Tip 5: Go back and read over old entries.
It’s basically a time capsule of you! Looking at entries from years past can be as nostalgic as looking through an old photo album. I thought that? Was I worried about that? I had a crush on WHO?? This can be so satisfying to read past entries and see how you’ve changed and grown. On that note, always be sure to date each entry so you can remember when they were written.
Tip 6: Write candidly, as if no one will ever read it.
I have a proclivity to imagine someone publishing my journals one day in a biography, which can make my entries inauthentic and self-censored. I must to push that (ridiculous and conceited) paranoia from my mind in order to write freely. Be honest with yourself and don’t hold back. If you write something so humiliating, you can always rip it up later, burn it or eat it. Whichever you prefer. (I actually did eat some incriminating bits of a page from my 4th grade diary, but I don’t recommend it.) Even if you are going to destroy an entry later, don’t miss out on that initial cathartic word dump onto the page!
Tip 7: Let go of guilt.
If you haven’t written in months, who cares? This isn’t a homework assignment, this is self-care. Don’t beat yourself up, just do a fresh entry and move on.
Tip 8: Discover what you like to write about most.
My final tip for meaningful journaling is to discover what you like to write most. Describe the most exciting event of your day. Cute things your kids said or did. Your feelings. Your beliefs. Story ideas. Lists. Anything that floats into your mind, stream-of-consciousness style. I love writing down my kid’s hilarious quips because I always inevitably forget them within a week if I don’t write them down. For example, here’s a forgotten entry that I wrote about my two-year-old daughter, Nora:
8/24/2021
We were staying late at Grammy and Daddy Paul’s house and Nora was tiring. She said she was hungry and I asked her what for: crackers, bananas, etc.? She said, “I’m hungry for home.”
Children are the best poets.
If I had not written this down, that beautiful moment would have been lost.
Suggested journal prompts to help you get started.
- If you could do one thing differently in high school, what would it have been and why?
2. What do you really want to say to somebody, but can’t?
3. What do you want to achieve most in the next five years? What steps do you need to take to get there?
4. What are three good things that happened today?
Thank you for reading 8 Tips for Meaningful Journaling This Year. For more tips and tricks on how to live a more simple, hygge-filled life, take a look at our latest content:
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Love Always,
