The Top 5 Reasons to Start Journaling in 2022!
Journaling is like keeping a written record of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. People write journals to keep track of their daily life tasks. Keeping track of what you do or what happens to you lets you know how certain things make you feel. Hence, you can find better ways to deal with your emotions. Recognizing your feelings gives you a sense of control over them. You will understand how you feel about certain things and people.
You will know what to accept, what to avoid, what is good, and what is bad for you. So, it is apparent that a journal helps you with a better insight into yourself and helps to build better connections with others.
Before Getting Started
There are so many reasons why you can use a journal. People use journals to write about their daily highlights. Some people use journals for writing positive thoughts and approaches, which helps with negative emotions in bad times and keeps a person motivated through them. Another reason why people use journals is to write about goals, wish lists, or capturing memories.
A journal is like a best friend that you tell everything to, and it does not judge you for being you. It’s like telling someone all the excitement and exhausting details of your day, except that instead of telling you to have to write. This might be a drawback of journaling as many people may not get enough time to write about their day or simply do not like to write.
But if you take a look at history, you will notice that many successful minds used to keep a journal. Foucault said, “it was a weapon for spiritual combat.” Because it is also used for practicing what you believe in. It becomes a part of yourself. Here are some reasons why you should also start journaling.
The Top Reasons to Start Journaling!
Here are the top 5 reasons why you should not wait and start journaling right away:
Helps in Managing Stress and Anxiety – Good for Your Mental Health
We all have stressors in our life. These stressors then interfere with our effectiveness in working or creating. Hence, they result in poor performance at work, health issues, or weak memory. Stress, to a significant amount, can cause anxiety. Anxiety is a more severe form of stress that impairs your social and occupational functioning.
Journaling helps manage stress. It is therapy in itself. Psychologists nowadays recommend writing your thoughts in a diary or journal. It is called paper therapy. Because when a particular thought or feeling is continuously on your mind, it becomes irritating. So, when you write what is on your mind, it produces a calming effect.
Consider your everyday thoughts like a waterfall. They are flowing, but they will stop if you put a big rock in front of the flowing water. The coming water couldn’t fall through the rock, putting a lot of pressure on it. The rock is like the stressor that is causing stress. But as soon as the rock falls, the water will also typically fall.
Helps in Achieving Goals
Journals can also be used to write your goals and what you want to be. They are like a constant reminder of your dreams. When you write a journal daily or even once a week, you go through all the goals you have written in it. And it constantly motivates you what your actual purpose is, what you want to be, or who you want to be.
You will be more active towards your goals when constantly reminded of them. These goals can be both short-term and long-term. It can be buying a gift for your mom or a house of your own. Short-term goals are critical. Because when you achieve them, they give you courage and willpower to accomplish a bigger one. You do not feel as if you have achieved nothing.
Boosts Self-Esteem
Giving your minimum time, even 15-20 mins daily, will boost your self-esteem. For example, write five things you are grateful for today. It will be like an activity to seek positivity within yourself. You are only thinking about good things. And when you write those things, you will be more thankful.
You will express gratitude and have to believe in good things. Self-esteem is one of the higher steps towards wholeness or self-actualization. It teaches you to be self-confident, accomplish your achievements, respect others and their goals and shape you into a better version of yourself.
Induces Productivity and Creativity
When writing a journal, you are in contact with your inner self. It is like you are talking to yourself and solving problems together. It makes you creative and more productive. Problem-free minds and environments increase the rate of productivity.
Keeping a journal is like cleaning a house- when you are stressed. And it can also be like that closet in your room where you put your pile of clothes- assembling a flow of thoughts. It is more like brainstorming and then becoming creative afterward. In journals, you can organize your ideas and thoughts and then be productive.
Helps Improving your Writing Skills
Last but not least, journaling is the best way to improve your writing skills. When you write about your daily routine, you improve your vocabulary and writing skills. You search for words that can define your feelings and situations better.
You learn grammar skills. You will notice that your punctuation and sentence structure will start improving. It will also develop a sense of improvement in you. You would want to learn more about writing sentences about past events if they happened long ago. Or, if you’re going to set goals for the future and write about them, you will learn the use of future tenses.
Final thoughts
So, it is clear that a journal is an excellent company to keep. Journals help us to control our thoughts, shape our personality, build up our confidence, help us be productive and creative.
Many great writers started writing by keeping a journal first. Many believe that it is step 1 of making a writer. Because journals are the source of connection to yourself, you start to feel deeper and recognize your feelings. Additionally, that is what it takes to make the best writer- feeling emotion deeply and abnormally.
Need an idea for a journal? Click here for the details on my favorite journal!
I hope that this article has helped you understand the benefits of journaling and what it can do for your mental health, but if you have any further questions, please feel free to comment below! XOXO Mary
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