How I Developed a Journal Habit that Sticks
After my many failed attempts in my teens and 20s, I’ve maintained a journaling habit for over two years. How did I do it?
I committed to making it a habit.
I used the Tiny Habits method after experiencing it through BJ Fogg’s email course in 2016. Journaling is now part of my morning ritual along with other habits I developed around drinking 3+ glasses of water and taking vitamins.
I experimented with the format.
I realized I failed to develop a journaling habit due to how I approached the writing. I’d think too much and sometimes come up with some forced philosophical musings. If I hadn’t already thrown out the books, I’d cringe years later when I discovered what I’d written.
After I learned of Morning Pages from a friend, I immediately embraced writing three stream-of-consciousness pages daily. I felt free of self-judgment and the words flowed. There was only one problem: on weekdays, I became stressed by how much time it took to write three pages before work. I then adapted the format.
I now write one structured page where I respond to quick prompts and one unstructured morning page on weekdays. On weekend mornings, I write one structured page and three morning pages.
I pick prompts and also change those up.
I added structure through 3–6 prompts to give me a more consistent baseline of what I’m thinking and feeling. I’m sure if you do a search there are a million prompts you could use. These prompts I’ve adopted after reading about the value of each one:
- I will let go of…
- I am grateful for…
- I will focus on…
- I’m feeling…
- The story I’m telling myself is…
- I’m afraid that…
What worked for me may not work for you. The point of sharing my journaling ritual is to inspire you to see what works for you!
This post is part of my WriteMarch series, a commitment to write daily for a month.
