How Journaling For Five Minutes With The “What Went Well” Journal Changed My Life

My junior year of high school I enrolled in a course called Human Behavior. Besides being taught by my favorite teacher, it also focused on a subject I found fascinating. On top of everything, Human Behavior came with a pretty light workload, meaning I could really take the class to just enjoy learning (the best kind). 

This didn’t stop my other teachers from assigning tons of homework, and it definitely didn’t make me immune to the stressors that inherently come with junior year (SAT prep, college looming on the horizon, and athletic recruitment being just some of the things on my mind). I started to get more and more stressed out and found it hard to balance my life between school, sports and social life. I entered that weird trance that many of us have been in previously in our lives – I felt constantly unfulfilled and stressed. No matter how happy I was at a specific moment, there was always something else I should be worried about. 

That was when we started our unit on Positive Psychology in Human Behavior, and when we were introduced to our semester long project for the class, The “What Went Well” Journal. My teacher gave us each a tiny pocket size notebook and instructed us to spend two minutes every day writing five things that went well that day. That’s it. They made it clear that we didn’t have to elaborate on any of the bullets, and our responses per day could vary from a couple sentences to a couple words. We would then hand our journals back at the end of the semester. 

I won’t lie, as sad as it is to admit, spending just two minutes journaling each day turned out to be significantly more challenging than I thought it would be. I would consistently forget to write my five things despite keeping my journal on the head of my bed. I did what most other students in my class did – fill in the journal once a week with loosely remembered moments I enjoyed or remembered happening. 

Around February of 2020 I started to get even more overwhelmed. I had bit off way more than I could chew, and our school had not shut down yet despite circulating rumors of a deadly virus in the area. I decided that now was the time to try out my “What Went Well” Journal. For real this time. I started taking three minutes out of my day right before bed to think about my day and write down five things that either made me happy or went well that day. 

Within two weeks, my mindset about life changed completely. As cheesy as it sounds, I became so much more cognisant of the positive things in my life, rather than focusing on those worrying things that would loom in the back of my mind. As I went through my day, anytime something happened that left me feeling happy or encouraged I would think to myself something along the lines of “remember this for tonight to write down.” Just flagging down these positive moments and thoughts throughout the day made seeing the good in each day significantly easier, to the point where it was almost habitual. While it only took three minutes to do the actual writing, my whole day was changed. 

I still keep my little journal with me, although I don’t write in it as much anymore because I’ve trained myself to embrace this positive mindset with or without it. I would seriously recommend starting your own “What Went Well” journal. After all, it takes so little active, physical effort but has such a profound impact on your day to day life, it would be a shame not to at least simply try it out.