For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be one of those people who journaled every day and had notebooks full of all of the memories from their life. I’ve been buying journals and stationery supplies for years in hopes that I would start daily journaling, but I would always become unmotivated and stop after a couple of weeks. In the past year, journaling has become such an important part of my daily routine, but only once I figured out what works for me.
Setting my intentions for journaling was super important for me to actually get into it. In other words, I asked myself: Why do I want to journal? The great thing about journaling is that you can write about literally anything you want. You can use your journal to vent, be creative, laugh, cry, and everything else in between. Personally, I’ve found journaling to be a safe place where I can get out all my thoughts and feelings, and it always feels so good afterward.
Taking the pressure off journaling was essential for me to start enjoying it. I always used to think that whenever I journaled, I had to write a complete list of everything I did that day so I would have those memories to look back on in 10 years. As you can imagine, this became very boring very quickly, and always discouraged me from writing in my journal. It honestly felt like a chore and was something I rarely felt like doing. Simply the idea of daily journaling was originally added pressure, because I felt like if I wasn’t doing it every day, then I was already failing at journaling. Once I started journaling only when I felt like it, and journaled about whatever felt exciting to write about, it became almost like a treat. Now, I absolutely love the time I journal every day because I never forced myself to do it, but it’s now something that I want to do every day, and something I look forward to.
I’ve accumulated many journals through the years and somehow managed to use almost none of them. Usually, I would buy the ones that look the cutest, but then once I had them, I never felt like the opportunity to write in them was good enough. I also felt guilty writing in them when the journal was too short because I didn’t want to waste the pages of the cute journal I just bought. Finally, I found the perfect Moleskine journal that has double the normal amount of pages and is of great quality all around. I also prefer writing with pens in general, but I especially like them while journaling because once I write something down in pen, it’s there forever. It’s really cool to me to have my raw thoughts on paper forever without any editing or second thoughts.
Even if you don’t overthink the whole process of journaling like I used to, there are usually things that are holding people back from journaling. I encourage everyone to try it out and find what works for you!