How to Journaling 101
+Free 10 Journaling Prompts for Peacefulness
I’ve been journaling from 2018 until now.
It helped me a lot, especially to settle my mind. My mind sometimes wandered around and made me doubt for no reason. With journaling, I become more aware of what I think about and how I tackle it.
Journaling made me much more peaceful.
The correlation with consistency is that my skill of being consistent has been honed. I find it much easier to be consistent in other areas.
For example, I can write easily without getting tired and start giving more values and ideas than ever before.
Journaling helps me become consistent in any area because I’m aware of what I think about and when I am trying to procrastinate, so I can start taking action and not fall into that trap.
I wrote this article to hopefully help you start journaling and improve your writing.
It will cover about:
- Why do you need to journal?
- How to journal, starting with choosing your journal books.
- Setting the specific time and place.
- How to freewrite while journaling
- Free 10 journaling prompts to help you implement.
Let’s jump right into it.
Why do you need to start journaling?
Personally, journaling helps me to become aware of what I think about and how I can settle my mind to remove unnecessary thoughts.
You see, we all have our minds running through every day and every second. Even if you are reading this article right now, you might start thinking about what happened before you started reading it, or maybe what you are going to do after this.
You are constantly thinking without even noticing, which is fine to be like that.
According to a study by Harvard University, people spend an average of 47% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing. Almost half of your time every day is spent thinking about something that is actually unnecessary.
This is why journaling helps you become more aware of what you are thinking about and how to tackle it in your everyday life.
Choose your favorite journaling books.
I personally like top-flip notebooks.
It just feels good when I write because my hands aren’t disturbed by the middle of the book. I can write comfortably from left to right with no disturbance. For some people, it’s varied, and you need to find your own convenience.
You can find your own by trying a lot of note-taking books.
How to find the right one is by knowing what is the best convenience for you to write.
It doesn’t have to look great, but at least it could make you want to pick up that book every day so that you can build the habit of journaling easily.
Set a specific time and place.
No specifics, no action.
The more you become specific about what you do, the more you will do it. We know when we need to drink water and when we need to sleep because our bodies are very specific. They know what time we need and where.
This is why you need to set a specific time and place.
For example, I want to write a journal every night at 8 p.m. or before I go to bed on my desk.
You can do it in the morning too, if you want.
For example, I want to write a journal every morning after I make my coffee on my desk.
For me, journaling while drinking coffee is the best morning ever.
The more specific you are, the more likely you are to do it and stick with it.
Free writing is the key to starting.
“I want to write about what I’m grateful for, and then I want to write my thoughts. Then I want to write…”
You don’t have to think that.
Just write a damn word. Then continue that.
That’s the key to free writing: you write something that comes out of your mind or randomly, even if it doesn’t make any sense.
So, our minds sometimes need time to prepare for the next activity we do.
If you’re just doing some housework and then sitting down and journaling, it’s going to be difficult to write something down.
So, in order to make your mind ready, you just need to sit down and write down anything.
This is an example of my free writing.
“I’m writing this article and thinking about the rain outside. My grammar is not that good, actually. What would I do after this? I don’t know. I hope that I can finish writing this article and read my book. I love to read my book.”
Does it make any sense? Nope.
Just write.
Now, it’s time for journaling after you set your mind.
These are 10 journaling prompts that I’ve found useful for starting your morning or even before you go to sleep:
- One thing that I’m grateful for, and I can feel how I’m grateful about it.
- What’s inside of my thoughts right now? . (What I’m thinking right now.)
- Fears, resentment, or any bad emotions?
- Plans for today.
- Write down yesterday’s evaluation.
- One thing I want to do is make this day better.
- One thing I should avoid that could make myself much worse.
- One thing I should strive for today.
- What’s my hope for tomorrow?
- Evaluation for today on what’s wrong and what’s right.
You can see that I use “one thing” a lot because we sometimes think too much about how many things we should write.
The important thing is focus. You need to focus on one thing and then start your day with that. Then, you will find out that the one thing you focus on helps you improve it to two things and more.
It starts with focus.
I hope that you can start journaling and improve your writing to achieve your goals and success!
New Substack! ✨
I’ve been working on making my articles more structured and exclusive, and I found the perfect platform in Substack.
I’m excited to share two new newsletters with you:
- Kevin Nokia Writing: My personal journey from struggling through depression to becoming a successful individual.
- I Am Literate: Discover how to replace scrolling addiction with effective reading habits to improve focus and attention span.
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Essential Resources for Your Journey 📚
- My Booknotes (Free) | Download here
Understand What You Read with Implementation Guide - Life-changing Blueprint (Free) | Download Here
How to Change Your Life with Implementation Guide - 30-day Simple Habit Tracker (Free) | Download Here
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