How To Journal For Self Improvement

How Journaling Can Improve Your Life

Looking to start journaling for self improvement? Writing in a journal is more than just a fun hobby. It can really improve your life- helping you set goals, heal your past and even manifest your future! Here are some tips on how to start journaling for self improvement!

How I Use Journaling To Improve Myself

Dear diary, remember when I was young and would pour my heart out to you about my latest crush or fights with my friends. I always felt better after I wrote it all down. While I’ve outgrown the silly crushes and middle-school drama, I’ll never out-grow my diary. It’s therapeutic and self-healing. But now, I call it a journal. I’ve also used journaling for shadow work.

Related:

Journaling Prompts For Mental Health

We get so busy and distracted, we rarely leave time to connect with what’s going on in our own mind. We lose focus, have a harder time setting and achieving goals and finding true happiness.

Keeping a journal can help you discover yourself on a deeper, more meaningful level. Journaling can also help with self love.

Here are 11 types of journals to try!

Whether it’s just a few bullet points to get some ideas out or a detailed entry, writing down your thoughts and feelings helps is good for you!

You’d be surprised what’s hiding deep inside your mind. What desires, dreams and potential are just waiting to be revealed?

Related:

Journaling For Self Love And Healing

How To Journal To Improve Your Life

I have been a self help junkie for over ten years and I found that keeping a journal was one of the most useful things I have ever done. When we take the time to write down our thoughts as they come, as honestly as possible, writing becomes like an open door into your head and we can look into what is troubling us and then take steps to removing those problems.

In order to do this though, it is important for you to hold yourself accountable by writing exactly what you are thinking as soon as possible after the thought enters your mind. In other words, don’t wait because if you do hold onto a problem too long, your subconscious mind will work to talk you out of facing it.

A journal can be something as simple as a book or an electronic device like a phone or tablet on which you make daily entries, but I think the best way is to use this method with paper and pen because it helps us deal with these thoughts more effectively.

I also love to add these printable mood trackers to my bullet journal.

18 Ways Journaling Can Improve You:

1) Keeps you honest with yourself.

2) Lets you see your patterns of thinking and working through the stuff that is holding you back. (You might be surprised!)

3) Helps bring clarity to things that are troubling us, allowing us to work on them more effectively.

4) Gives us insight into how to make changes in our lives.

5) Helps you work through problems that are causing us stress and other emotional disorders.

6) Helps you get yourself out of negative thought patterns.

7) Gives us a way to discover what is important to us by seeing what issue have occupied most of your time.

8) Helps us learn to take responsibility for our own actions and how we deal with problems.

9) Helps you find out who you really are and what you’re capable of doing.

10) Improves your writing skills because it forces you to write more and helps develop good habits.

11) Helps you to release anger, frustration and other negative feelings in a healthy way.

12) Helps us achieve our personal goals by reminding yourself about them often.

13) Increases self-esteem because what we write can help build values that are important to us.

14) Makes you think about the future rather than the past.

15) Helps you think beyond your current circumstances, allowing us to see how we might resolve problems that are holding us back.

16) Allows you to live in the moment instead of worrying about what is going on around you.

17) Prevents procrastination because if it’s written down, it needs to get done.

18) Helps you become more goal-oriented.

Tips On How To Journal For Self Improvement:

1) Keep a journal where you can record your thoughts whether it be on your computer or as a physical book.

2) Set aside ten to fifteen minutes every day at the same time and place for this.

3) Remember that quality is more important than quantity so don’t try to fill the whole page with stuff.

4) Let everything you write be from your heart and don’t worry about what other people might think.

5) Always record thoughts as soon as they arise. If a thought is troubling you, it will fade away over time if you wait longer to write it down.

6) Don’t try to censor yourself or play devil’s advocate, write it as it is.

7) If you find yourself having a hard time writing something down because of how personal or sensitive it is to you, stop and think about whether you really want to continue journaling. If the answer is yes then just start by saying that you have a problem sharing this but you feel it’s important and then take it from there.

8) Don’t stop journaling because your feelings about a situation has changed.

9) If you want, make your journal private or share parts of what you write with someone else for help or advice. Just be careful who you choose to share it with.

Benefits Of Journaling For Self Improvement

Journaling for self improvement is a great exercise to do because it will allow you to monitor your thoughts and feelings more effectively which can help with achieving certain goals or overcoming problems such as stress, anxiety each time it arises. It also helps fight procrastination and get rid of bad habits by recording all the negative things

Need a little motivation to get your creativity flowing? Use these journal writing prompts for self improvement to spark your creative writing and self-reflection! Just answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully! Journaling can be a great source of self-awareness, growth and creativity! Enjoy!

Self Improvement Journal Prompts

1.) How am I feeling physically?

2.) How do I feel mentally?

3.) What would I like to accomplish today?

4.) What is holding me back from accomplishing my goals?

5.) What do I NEED to accomplish today?

6.) What’s stressing me out lately?

7.) How do I really feel about myself?

8.) What do I like about myself?

9.) What do I not like about myself? What would I change?

10.) What am I truly thankful for?

11.) Am I living Intentionally? What does that mean to me?

12.) How do I treat others?

13.) Where do I see myself in 5 years?

14.) what’s my dream job?

15.) what’s my best feature?

16.) What is my biggest fear?

17.) when do I feel best?

18.) what do I need to let go of?

19. What are my biggest challenges?

20.) How have I changed over the past 10 years?

21.) Write out a plan to achieve your goals.

22.) What do I love doing the most?

23.) Who is my most favourite person? And why?

24.) What’s my favourite time of day?

25.) Who is someone I miss from my past?

26.) How would I describe myself?

27.) How do I think others would describe me?

28.) What is one thing I need to work on to improve myself?

29.) Describe my perfect day!

30.) What is my biggest regret?

If you’re like me, journaling is more effective with a pen and paper rather than on your laptop. And nothing motivates me more to actually start journaling than a cool notebook and adorable pens!

Here’s my fave journaling supplies:

Love this cool Zen as F*CK journal!

The gratitude journal has daily tips and questions to prompt a Grateful day!

And the watercolour journal is ultra-feminine and inspiring!

These pens are an amazing deal at $9.99 for 36 premium, fine-line pens. All different colours, so you can pick a colour for each mood! I was surprised by the quality and super smooth performance of these pens!

And check out these super pretty rose gold pens! And they’re just $7.99 for 4!!! They’re so pretty I wanna write every day!

I hope you enjoyed these tips on how to journal for self improvement and use them to help improve your life.