How to start journaling
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Once upon a time, I thought journaling was pointless. I said it. I told the thing you’re not supposed to say. Everyone was making a big deal out of what seemed like a diary, and I tried but couldn’t get into it. I had a journal when I was younger; I didn’t need one as an adult.
A few years later, that all changed and ironically enough, my online business based on journaling, which shows you how powerful it indeed became.
Journaling isn’t a diary, but it also doesn’t have the necessary rules and regulations; it’s all about speaking from the heart, but for some, that can be a little intimidating, so here are three steps to help you start journaling.
Step 1: Gather the supplies
Buy the lovely journals. The ones with the beautiful designs, nice pens, and supplies will motivate you to want to journal. Eventually, the aesthetic part won’t be as necessary; you will be okay with a scrap piece of paper and an old pencil. Nonetheless, to start, we need to feel motivated, and sometimes that means spending the extra few dollars on some excellent journals and nice pens.
If you want to add aesthetics to your journals, if you are a painter or an artist of any kind, gather those supplies and use them during your reflections.
Step 2: Find your ritual and routine.
If you carry your journal around and say you will fill it in when you have the time, you will never have the time. Make the time in your morning and your night routine.
For example, I wake up in the morning, make my bed and pour my tea into a mug. I then sip my tea and journal for 5 or 10 minutes, nothing major but enough to get ideas down, get habits, routines, rituals, and physical proof that I am all in for my emotional wellbeing.
Set a time that habitual; at first, it will seem like a chore, but if you miss one day, you will start to notice because you will begin to look forward to it as your safe space.
Step 3: Understand its intimacy.
When I first started journaling, I was almost embarrassed to write things down or use journal prompts that had me diving too much into detail about me, my dreams, goals, and the individual parts of me that I don’t share with anybody else.
I then asked myself, why?
No one is going to read this but you; what’s the point in feeling embarrassed?
There was no point.
Understand that journaling is intimate; it’s a personal conversation between you and paper, the best secret keeper when kept safe. It helps you open up your heart and get rid of lingering thoughts that are getting in the way of having a successful day.