Benefits of Journaling:

How Journaling Can Help with Achieving Your Goals

Journaling can help you achieve your goals because it will force you to think about them, consider the why and how, and delve deeper into the situation so that you can examine all sides of it. Read on to find out how journaling can help.

It Forces You to Write Down Your Goal. When you start a journal, it basically is a way to force yourself to document your goals. Whether you write them down on paper or you use technology to get it all down doesn’t matter. Once they’re written, they are ready to tackle.

It Makes You Consider Why and How as you enter data into your journal, you’ll be forced to face the why and how of your goal. This is especially true if you write down a goal and focus on it in your journal.

It Enables You to Examine the Opportunities and Threats. When you are focused on goal making with your journal, you’ll also explore opportunities and threats coming your way due to your goals. It helps you avoid roadblocks in advance.

It Makes You Develop Steps for Success Based on Your Goals ñ When you see it written down, you’ll want to notice and pull out any steps you’ve developed in your journal and put them in your calendar for scheduling.

It Helps You Improve Goal Setting and Achievement. Each time you intentionally set goals, define steps to achieve the goals, and perform them, you are setting yourself up for being able to improve your skills.

It Provides Accountability. Even if no one else is reading your journal, a private journal can help you become accountable to yourself. If you develop the habit of looking at your journal each day and put something else in there each day, it’ll work great for helping you become more accountable.

It Provides a Permanent Record. Having a permanent record of the things you’ve done in your life, whether it’s personal or work, is a beautiful thing. Hardly anyone has a perfect memory, so you’ll maintain the lessons learned better with the record to look back at.

It May Be Inspirational. Depending on the journal, you might even be able to take the information inside and compile it into a real book for others to read to inspire them. You might also take from it steps for your success for a project and turn it into a course to inspire someone else.

Journaling is an excellent way to work toward achieving all your goals. It will even help you make better goals because the process of entering facts in your journal will cause you to see them in a more logical way that is more useful.

 

How Journaling Can Help with Mental Health Issues
Keeping any type of journal will help with improving any mental health issues. However, if you really want to tackle a specific problem you’re having, it will help to determine the right type of journal to keep. Keeping a particular kind of journal may work best for your issue.

Boosts Your Mood and If you really want to boost your mood, keeping a gratitude journal is where it’s at. All you have to do is once a day, preferably before bed, write down what you’re grateful for today. It might not seem like much but it’s very powerful for going to sleep, thinking positively about your life.

Increases Your Sense of Well-Being and as you write out your thoughts, you’ll start seeing issues from a new angle just because you’re opening your mind to think about it. This is going to make you feel more capable of dealing with whatever happens.

Lessens Symptoms of Depression. Understand that depression is something different from sadness, and that you likely need a counselor. Writing it all down can make it seem less horrific so that you can feel better. Plus, you can look back at days you thought life was “over” and see better days after.

Reduces Anxiety, the problem with anxiety is that it was designed to help us get away from immediate danger. It triggers the “fight or flight” response. If each time you have that anxious feeling you choose to write in your journal how you are feeling and why, you’ll start to control it better.

* Lowers avoidance behaviors in many people who have mental health issues practice avoidance behaviors such as not going to places that cause them anxiety, or not doing the things they need to do due to how they feel. When you write it out, it helps you get the feelings out but do the thing anyway.

* You’ll Sleep Better. Pouring your heart out into a journal is a great way to get things off your chest. However, for sleep, go to the gratitude journal and write down what you’re thankful for today and go to sleep thinking of that.

Makes You a Kinder Person. Exploring your own emotional state and accepting your own feelings while you work through what makes you who you are in your journal is going to make you naturally more empathetic to others too. Letting go of judgment for self improves your thoughts for others also.

Improves Your Memory This is almost a situation where you want to say “duh” but it has to be said. Writing down things helps you remember them because you can go back and read it, but also because the act of writing something down enables you to recall it.

One thing that can really help you make your journaling work is to learn how to keep one effectively. Make some journaling rules, do it every day to create a habit, and keep it private unless you decide to let your therapist see it or you decide to use it to help others. This is for you and only you for the most part.

How to Get Started Writing a Journal
Getting started journaling isn’t something that you need to think about too hard. Yes, there are numerous types and styles of journals and ways to do this that may or may not be more effective depending on your goals, but you can simply get some paper (or your computer) and get started today.

Dust Off Your Pen and Paper. You don’t need anything special to keep a journal; in fact, purists believe that using pen and paper is the best way to journal because you can carry it with you anywhere and you don’t need technology. So, there will be no excuses.

Do It First Thing in the Morning Don’t procrastinate about keeping your journal. Its best to do it in the morning before you begin your day so that you have the right frame of mind for the day. Plus, you only need five to ten minutes, so it’s not that big of a deal.

Do It Last Thing at Night Another time to do it is before bed. This works especially well for gratitude journals. That way you can go to sleep thinking about all the things you are grateful for instead of things you’re worried about.

Write Every Single Day Whenever you choose to do it, try to set it up so that it becomes a ritual and a habit. Journaling every single day is going to be more effective than just doing it when you feel like it.

Start Simply Don’t start being worried about style and substance right now; just work on the daily habit with pen and paper (or if it’s easier for you, a computer or smartphone). Don’t make it hard – just get going.

Begin with Today Start right now and write about your day today. That’s the easiest thing to do. What of significance happened today? How did you feel about it? What would you do differently? What would you do the same?

Try Different Types of Journals Once you develop the habit, you can start trying different types of journaling like a bullet journal, or a vision journal, or maybe even a project journal for your next project.

Keep It Private the main thing to remember about your journal is that it should be kept private. The only exception is if you want to share thoughts with a therapist, counselor, or coach. Or if you want to turn it into a book or course, to help someone else overcome whatever you overcame.

Keeping a journal will help you deal with the things that happen to you as well as the things that have not happened to you. The main reason is that writing it down helps you remember what you did right and what you did wrong. It helps you improve your decision-making capacity for similar situations. The main thing is just to get started journaling in any way that works for you.

How to Make Your Journaling More Effective
Any type of journal that you keep can be beneficial. It doesn’t matter if it’s just to document your life or to work through problems – you can use a journal to do it all. From tracking your projects to documenting vacation to overcoming anxiety, a journal will work for you if you pick the right type and make journaling a ritual.

Find the Right Medium for You for some people, that’s pen and paper. Many experts claim that’s the best way because of its simplicity. However, you have to do what works for you, and what works for you is what you will do daily. If you make it too hard, you won’t do it.

Turn Journaling Daily into a Habit to be most effective, journaling must go on for a long time. It’s a long-term strategy to improve your life and not something that is going to have any effect overnight. For this reason, ritualize your journaling so that it becomes a daily habit.

Set Up a Comfy Journaling Spot Find a good space you can journal in each day, one which is relaxing and without stress. Some people like to keep their journal by their bedside so that each night when they get into bed, they can quickly write in their journals.

Choose the Right Style of Journal for Your Needs ñ the type of journal you want to keep depends on how you plan to use it. You may want to track a project, in which case you’ll need a project journal. If you want to simply document your life, you’d want a classic journal.

Use Your Journal to Work Through Life and Reach Goals ñ Don’t just write in the journal; actively seek to improve something in your life – whether it’s the thoughts which drive your feelings or improving your actions so that you experience more success.

Consider Using More Than Writing to Document Your Life ñ You don’t need to just use text. You can use images, pictures, tickets, and other memories inside your journal too. Sometimes a few pictures and mementos mean more than anything you can write to help you remember.

Read and Reflect Occasionally Take at least a few minutes to re-read parts of your journal. Once you’ve kept it for a year, it’s fun to go back and read the same day from last year to find out what’s different now and what’s the same and why.

Keep Your Journal Secure You don’t want to worry about anyone getting into your private business when you’re not around, so keep it hidden. If it’s on your computer, keep it password protected.

If you know why you want to journal, it’ll be easier to figure out which type of journal you need to keep to make your journaling more effective. Sometimes you just want to document your life, while other times you want to work through something difficult. It really depends on your goals and the point of the journal.

Journaling to Help Combat Loneliness

It really doesn’t matter what your issue is; if you want to overcome it, you can find a way to use journaling to help. You can set up a particular type of journal like a gratitude journal to help yourself become more thankful for what you do have, and you can also keep a bullet journal and set goals to overcome the loneliness you’re experiencing if more social connections will do it. The possibilities are truly endless.

Let’s look in more detail at how journaling can help combat loneliness.

Allows You to Explore Your Thoughts and Feelings

Journaling can help to simply focus on writing expressively your thoughts and feelings surrounding the loneliness that you are feeling. If you can write about each part of your feelings, and when you first noticed them, you may identify the core cause of the feelings. When you do that, you can develop a plan to solve the problem.

Gives You a Way to Express Your Thoughts and Feelings

Writing is a time-honored way of expressing thoughts and feelings safely. You never have to let anyone read it. You can write it down in the form of letters to people, or to yourself, or even to someone you don’t know that you keep for yourself when you’re done but completed to get it out in the light to study by you.

Provides a Way to Understand Your Thoughts and Feelings

Sometimes you may not even know what you are feeling. It can be hard to understand and express what we feel even to ourselves. But when you focus on writing it down, it can help you understand everything in a new way from a new direction that you may not have considered.

Helps Foster Social Connections

It might seem like a strange notion to consider, but writing can even help you foster social connections. The main reason is that as you read through what you’ve written, you’re going to discover ways to overcome your situation to find the healthy social connections you need.

Helps You See the Big Picture More Easily

Looking back at the things you’ve written over time about any topic can provide insight into the situation that you never saw coming. That’s because having the journal to look back on provides a way to see the bigger picture. You may feel super-lonely today, but it’s still less than yesterday, which lets you know it’s going to get even better from here.

Provides a Means to Understand and Organize Your Thoughts

Writing things down, especially when you choose a particular method like the bullet journal, will help you get your thoughts down in an organized and useful way. When your thoughts are a jumble, you might not see the real point but when they’re organized, it makes all the difference. For example, in writing it all down, you may realize that your loneliness is really due to being with the wrong partner who does not value you.

You’ll Sharpen Your Observation Skills

Once you start writing regularly and it’s become a habit, something amazing will happen. Your observation skills will be sharper, and you’ll have an easier time coming up with descriptive and expressive words to use in your journal. This is going to lead to even more breakthroughs due to having more clarity.

Focuses Your Gratitude Skills

Something funny happens when writing in a journal, even if it’s not specifically a gratitude journal per se. What happens is that as you’re writing (even if you’re upset), you’ll become calmer – especially when you read it back. You’ll become grateful for what you do have that is positive in your life, even if it’s simply the ability to breathe in and out today.

If you want to combat loneliness, consider writing about and exploring why you feel lonely. You also should remember to read the definition of “loneliness” to ensure that this is what you are really experiencing. No one ever needs to be lonely, even when they are alone, if they know how to work through their thoughts and feelings. Journaling can help with that.

 

Journaling to Help with Stress
Stress affects almost everyone at some time in their lives. For some people, it’s more of a problem with their genetics and for some, it’s due to their situation. Whatever reason you are stressed, congratulations for recognizing it and wanting to do something about it. Here are some good ways to journal to combat your stress.

Write Daily for 5 to 15 Minutes

The thing about journaling that is important is you need to do it daily long term for it to really work. It takes a lot of writing and insight to figure out why you’re dealing with stress and how to overcome it.

Write about Your Worries

Go straight to the problem and write about your worries. Describe them from every single angle you can come up with. The more descriptive, the better. Go back to the first time you felt this feeling regarding this topic so that you can get to the bottom of it.

Describe What’s Happening Now

Put out of your mind what you did, what someone else did, or what can be done – right now write about precisely what is happening right now and where you stand with the issue causing your stress. If it’s generalized stress, try to make a list of things that might be contributing.

Document the Worst That Can Happen

As you look at the situation, one thing that often causes stress is the unknown, or the “worst thing” that you think can happen. Describe this worst thing but make it realistic. For example, don’t make up something like an airplane falling on your wedding party. That isn’t realistic. However, bad weather, rude in-laws, and other issues may be.

Document the Best That Can Happen

Let’s get serious by thinking about and writing about the very best (realistic) outcome of the situation you’re stressing about. Include potential steps and tactics to achieve this best-case scenario so that you can see it to fruition if you so choose.

Document What Is Really Happening

As you are writing, be very careful to be realistic and honest above all else. Other than when you imagine the best and worst, ensure that you are also documenting the reality of what is happening to you right now. That way, you can narrow down identifying the stress-inducing situation.

Write a Counter-Argument to Yourself

A really good way to overcome some stress about a situation is to argue with yourself. First, tell your story as a letter to yourself about what is happening. Then write a letter back to yourself in answer, arguing all the negativity and turning it into positivity. If your best friend wrote that, what would you say back?

It’s surprising that writing can accomplish so much, but if you go into journaling to help with stress under the right attitude and with a goal in mind, you can achieve a lot. The important thing is that you need to be honest with yourself so that you can find out the true causes of your stress. In this way, the actions you take to overcome it really are effective.

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