You might love rereading your journal
I struggled with feeling like I wasn’t making any progress in my life for a long time. For years, really.
I would look at my love life or career, and I just wouldn’t see any difference. It would get to the point where I became really frustrated because I felt that I was working hard and just not seeing any development in myself.
I felt stuck.
Until one day, I decided to sit down and reread my journal.
Here’s how it changed the game for me.
My growth and progress became clear
I decided to look back at my writings from a year ago. At that time, I had no job, things were falling apart with my ex, and I was out drinking 3 times a week.
Here’s a snippet of what I wrote a year ago:
Me and X are having some pretty heavy problems. And I can’t deny the fact that I’m constantly switching between wanting to build a future and wanting to end it. I can’t be here. The room is becoming suffocating. And it is my fault, it is.
As you can tell, I was not in a great place emotionally.
And to be honest, it didn’t feel great to read. I definitely felt like I was back there as I read it. I could feel the frustration, and I remembered that feeling of being trapped. Completely trapped.
But as soon as I had finished reading, I realized something: I wasn’t in that place anymore.
That changed everything for me.
Sure, it didn’t change my current situation — I still felt like I could be doing more in my life. But I didn’t feel as stuck.
Reading about my mindset and my life from a year ago made me proud to be where I am today: not in that relationship and more in love with myself.
We need to connect with our big picture
It may sound fluffy or romantic to say that looking back at your life through your journal will help you become more proud of yourself today. It may even seem a bit delusional.
But it’s not. It’s just reality. Life keeps shifting, and, in the blur of it all, we can forget to look at the big picture.
And we need to look at the big picture.
It’s only there that you’ll be able to see how much things have improved for you. How much you have improved.
Otherwise, negativity could dominate your perception.
And it’s not your fault. All of our minds have a tendency to trick us into thinking that things are worse than they really are. It’s called negativity bias. It is this — sometimes quite annoying — psychological phenomenon that tricks us into paying more attention to negative things than positive things.
For example, it is much easier to think of all of the ways that a job interview could go wrong than it is to think of all of the ways that it might go right.
Try to imagine this for yourself right now. Imagine that you are going to an interview for your dream job. Your dream job. You sit down in front of the interviewer. You’re nervous. Do you see it? Do you feel it?
Now, what could go right?
What could go wrong?
If you’re like me, you had to work to find something that could go right. Such as the interviewer smiling or the vibe being great. It felt nice though.
But when it came to what could go wrong… Boy. The wheel had no problem turning. I went as far as to imagine myself running out of the room, crying.
It’s not fair, right?
But it’s just how our minds are structured to help us survive.
Luckily life is about more than surviving these days. Reminding ourselves of the big picture can help us appreciate life a bit more by zooming out. It can give us a little break from all the pressure or discouragement that we have a habit of getting into.
Rereading your journal is a way to do this.
I reconnected with who I was — and got to know myself even better
I read somewhere that rereading your journal can feel like reconnecting with an old friend.
I like that phrase a lot.
Getting to know myself even better is the other primary reason why rereading my journal is so important. I get to reconnect with all of the sides of myself that have existed throughout time.
Now, we hear it all the time: Dig deep. Go on a self-discovery journey. Become your true self.
It sounds nice, sure. I always imagine it as going through some dark tunnel to find glitter and sparkly lights at the end.
But my imagination is too vivid. I don’t think it works well as a metaphor to describe how reality is.
So how can we translate this “self-discovery journey” into something real?
Rereading your journal is not pretty
Well, let me talk a bit more about reading your journal.
It’s not at all pretty. Cringing and judging are inevitable side-effects.
I can’t tell you how many times I wish I hadn’t reread some foolishly naive thought about an ex-boyfriend — or wished that I had actually written about something other than some guy.
But it’s honest work.
It’s easy to live blindly and think unrealistically high of ourselves. It’s easy to forget that we all have shameful and embarrassing — even evil — parts of ourselves. It’s easy to simply blame other people and forget that we also could’ve done things a lot better.
When you decide to reread your journal, you come face to face with who you really are — or have been. You do not deny that you have been naive or rudely selfish or plain dumb to listen to.
You acknowledge it.
Truly “getting to know yourself” is exploring and recognizing those parts of you, no matter how freaking embarrassing or awful.
It has to be ugly. Otherwise it wouldn’t be real.
I don’t think I can emphasize enough how profound knowing this is — and you now do.
But it can be beautiful
Now as easy as it is to be ignorant of your dark sides, it’s also easy to do the opposite and get consumed by your ugliness and insufficiency.
To forget that we have strength, beauty, and wisdom as well.
Rereading your journal and comparing the person on the page to the person you are today can help you appreciate those sides of yourself.
But you might also discover that in between all of the ugliness, there are sparklets of wisdom scattered all over your pages — your wisdom.
At least that’s what happened to me.
This is a snippet of something I wrote at the age of 19 after returning to the city, where I went to high school, a year after graduating:
It’s weird being back here. I truly dislike it here; too many bad memories. But then again also a lot of important memories, I guess. Of where I am never going to go back to. I guess High School really just is something you have to get through. I don’t want to blame anyone or anything anymore. It’s just not worth it.
That is a real snippet with a real sparklet of wisdom in deciding not to blame anyone and knowing that life has to move on.
I was very moved to reread my own words and mind. I was actually quite wise.
I bet you were as well.
If you want to, you could go find out if I’m right and reread your journal.
