I’ve been journaling everyday since March 7th 2020, the day I did my first triathlon. Coincidentally, also a week before the world was flipped upside down in a global pandemic. It’s changed my life immensely, and here are some reasons why you should journal NOW!
Journaling Videos:
1. Strengthens Your Memory
The easiest way to keep a journal is to document what happened in your day. This helps strengthen your memory, because the act of writing down what you did from your perspective will solidify it in your memory.
You can choose whatever you want to record from your days, for example:
- what you ate
- what you did
- where you went
- what event you attended
- what happened in the news
- interactions with people
- your feelings
2. Cage the Monkey!
Morning pages is precisely used for this reason. But whether or not you write in the morning, it’s still very important to cage your monkey mind. So get all your worries and complaints off your mind and on the page.
You don’t need to figure out solutions in your journal, you just need to lay out your problems to unload them from your mind. Do it, and then get on with your day. You’ll feel much better, be much more productive, and hey, you’ll actually figure out a solution too!
3. Become Comfortable with Yourself
Journaling is an activity that only you do with yourself. You have to sit with yourself and write down what you think about and care about on something that will be reserved only for you to read. We’re not all Anne Frank here, the whole world will not be reading your journals.
Through journaling, you can clarify your thoughts more, you can reflect on interactions and try to understand your actions from a 3rd person perspective.
4. Meditative, Calming, Grounding
Similar to brewing a coffee in the morning, sitting by your desk with pen and paper and writing for 15 minutes is meditative, calming, and grounding. It’s quiet time for you, your thoughts and the task at hand.
You’ll feel more connected to yourself, you’ll feel that time is finite, and you’ll reestablish your values.
5. Sense of Accomplishment
When was the last time you’ve written something? When was the last time you’ve written a page of something? Being able to look back and say “hey, I wrote that!” is a great sense of accomplishment, even better than making your bed.
If you write just one page (even large words, double spaced) every day, soon it will accumulate and you’ll have a book of your hand written words. Isn’t that neat? I’ve collected 4-5 books now and they’re my most prized possessions.
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