I started journaling consistently when I was 15 years old, a sophomore in high school, but before then I had a graveyard of half-filled, discarded journals lying about my room. So what was the inspiration that led me to finally fill a journal to its brim? Letting go of the preconceived notions of what a journal had to be. Bullet journaling never worked for me and having those clean and proper journals scattered across Pinterest intimidated me. I started writing whatever and wanted, whenever I wanted, and four years later, I am on my fifth full journal. Here are some tips I have for those who want to start journaling but are unsure where to start and have the same fears as I did.
Don’t give yourself time restraints
Before I started journaling my own way, I would set a timer for an hour and force myself to journal every single day. This was exhausting to me. I wasn’t journaling for the right reasons, I was journaling just to reach this quota I placed on myself. I stopped doing that and that’s when journaling became enjoyable to me. I don’t force myself to journal when I don’t want to, and sometimes that means going a few months without touching it at all; that’s okay. It’s okay to leave your journal dormant for a while, inspiration will strike when it wants to strike. Don’t force it.
You don’t have to just write
Sometimes I’m in the mood to journal, but I don’t want to write anything. Draw, even if it sucks.
Make collages, even if the magazine cut-outs you have don’t match. Cross stuff out, make mini-posters for your favorite band, practice calligraphy, and even just test out old pens and markers on a page in your journal. Journals don’t have to be somewhere you write your deepest darkest secrets, they can be a creative outlet. Do you have a vision for the weirdest drawing of the weirdest monster? Draw it out, no one’s going to see it it’s your journal. Start drawing something in your journal, but you’re starting to hate it? Add more details. Who cares if it’s messy and disorganized, no one is going to see it.
Decorate the Cover
Go on RedBubble or Amazon and buy some stickers that inspire you. Have a bunch of stickers from free events around campus or some from a local shop from your hometown? Decorate the cover of your journal. Cover that journal with stickers that make you want to grab it and write inside it. Put your personality on the front of your journal, it’s yours anyway. My current journal has a polaroid my boyfriend took of me talking to my dad taped onto the cover. One of my past journals has one of my high school friend’s 5th-grade yearbook photo taped onto it. Another has temporary IDS from high school taped all over the back. It doesn’t have to look cute or organized. Have fun with it, don’t limit yourself to an idea in your head. Make it messy if that’s what you’re into.
Motivate Yourself to Actually Finish the Journal
The hardest part of journaling, for me, was not discarding my first ever journal the way I had the 500 million journals before this one. I was so intensely focused on finishing the whole journal that during study hall or any free period I would just fill up that journal and get through as many pages as I could. I’ve learned that once you get finished with one full journal, you’ve developed the habit and you’ll never discard another one again. One way I kept myself from throwing these journals away was by writing letters to my future self. Flip to a random page in the journal and write a letter to yourself, asking questions or just talking about your current reality. This, at least for me, was motivation to continue filling up this journal until I reached those letters just so I could reminisce.