Thinking about starting a journal. Maybe you are starting for the first time or maybe you’ve tried before and this time you want to make the journaling habit stick. If so, you are in the right place. Keep on reading as I’m going to show you how to journal.
Step 1: Get a journal and a pen
To get started you will need a pen and paper. Some people would argue that you just need something to write with and therefore you can do it on your laptop or your phone. However, I personally believe that journalling should be done with a pen and paper if possible.
Now there are a lot of notebooks that are specifically designed for journaling, such as The Happiness Planner. These are great for people who would like some direction in their journalling. However, you don’t need a fancy journal in order to start journalling. A plain notebook will do absolutely fine. In fact, for some people a dated planner can make some people feel bad when they miss a day so using a normal notebook, which is not dated, will mean you can just write the date at the top on the days you manage to journal.
Step 2: Set aside time to journal
As with forming any new habit you need to set aside the time. It is very popular to journal first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Journalling in the morning is great if you want to set intentions for the day, whereas journalling at night is great for people who want to reflect on the day and clear their thoughts before heading to bed. You can choose one, or both. Once you have decided when you are going to journal it is advisable to set yourself a reminder until you have formed the habit.
Step 3: Create the right environment
You’ve got what you need to start writing and you know when you are going to journal. Next is the where. For journalling, you want ideally to be alone in a place you can truly relax. Some people decide to be in complete silence, whereas some like to journal to sounds. This would usually be something relaxing such as classic music or sounds of nature. If possible you should also consider the lighting.
Step 4: Set a focus for your journalling session
There is nothing worse than staring at a blank page and have no idea what to write.
A very popular type of journalling is called Morning Pages. In this type of journalling the intention is to write “three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing”.
Now if writing a stream of consciousness freaks you out don’t worry there are lots of other ways you can approach journalling. You can:
- Write what you are grateful for
- Write about your goals
- Write about how you want your day to go
- Write about what happened during the day
- Write about the lessons you’ve learnt today
- Write about a problem you are trying to solve
As mentioned before you can by planners that already have prompts. This will mean the planner is setting the intention for you.
Now it may be that you journal about the same thing every day or you mix up the focus.
If you need more evening journalling prompts read ‘Journalling prompts for your evening journal’.
Step 5: Start journalling
You now have everything you need to start journalling so now it is time to take action. In the beginning, start small. Maybe you just answer one prompt or you set a timer for.3 minutes. In the beginning, the focus should be on getting started and starting to making journalling a regular habit in your life.
And don’t forget whilst it is great to get the habit of journalling daily it isn’t the be-all and end-all. If you don’t write for a few days just start again.
