Start Writing in a Journal | Day 1: Improving Your Life in 31 Days

This is the first post in the “Improving Your Life in 31 Days” series. For more information, and to view an index of all the posts in this series, please click here to go to the central page.

On with today’s post!

Perhaps you don’t like writing, or maybe you’ve never been good at it, so you never wanted to start a journal. If that’s you, then for the sake of this series, I ask you to abandon any preconceptions about journal writing, and find a notebook to be your “personal growth” journal.

Don’t worry if you’re not good at writing, or if you’ve never been able to write much of anything, you’ll get better over continued practice. And besides, the beauty of keeping a personal journal is that only YOU have to see it. Whether your writing is horrible or not, you’ll still be able to take part in all the benefits.

How Journaling Can Improve Your Life

Before I really knew anything about it, writing in a journal seemed to be just pen on paper, a way to document your day, but I saw no real benefits other than being able to look back someday on your thoughts and have a laugh about the things that were written, things like that.

Then, after reading up on it, and then trying it out for myself, I found that journaling on a regular basis can yield a lot more benefits than what meets the eye:

When writing about specific ideas, what often happens is that more ideas begin to surface, better ideas that you may have not been opened up to if you had not been writing in the first place.
You can constantly keep track of your goals because you can easily reflect on your progress day in and day out.
You’re forced to think and build upon your linguistic intelligence.
You’ll become a better writer, if that’s of any interest to you.
Problem solving will become easier, because it’s much easier to step away from your situations and observe them from the outside looking in. This is why it’s easier to give advice to others than it is to take it.
Once you get used to it, journaling can be very therapeutic and turn into a moment of relaxation. If you make it a habit, it can even end up being something you look forward to!
You’ll learn more about yourself, which is the key to personal growth… you can’t build upon something you’re unfamiliar with.
Journaling can be a great stress reliever.
Become more organized, especially in your thoughts, which also leads to quicker, clearer thinking over time.
Because you are setting aside time to focus on your thoughts and your writing, even if it’s for very short periods of time each day, the practice can help you to focus better in everything you do.

The list literally goes on and on… so I’m pretty sure you get the picture. However, with a list of benefits that big, you’re probably thinking there must be special “rules” you have to follow, or a specific way to journal, or an enormous amount of time you have to put into the practice each day but…

There are no rules, there is no minimum “timeframe” you have to do it in, and no special way to do things.

How to Start Journaling

This is the simple part… all you need is something to write with, something to write on, and a little bit of time (10-15 minutes minimum) and just write. You can write about your day, what you plan on doing, your goals, how you feel about certain situations, what you could do to improve, etc. just write and usually you’ll get into your own groove of things because remember, only YOU have to see what’s in your journal.

If you’re new to journaling, I highly recommend you journal in bulleted lists. Be short and to the point at first, and your ideas should expand from there. I’m not exactly sure why, but this seems to take a lot of the “writing” pressure off.

If you’re not in a great mood, or even if you are, I highly recommend starting your journal entry off with 10 things you’re grateful for. Gratitude is a great way to start anything, and helps put you into a positive mental state right from the beginning.

Of course these are just suggestions to get you started, because remember, there are no rules when it comes to journaling, you can do it however you want, whenever you want, and how often you want. If you really want to get into the habit of doing it though, you should definitely strive to write in your journal for at least 10-15 minutes every day.

To Continue, or Not to Continue…

Of course this is just the first day of the “Improving Your Life in 31 Days” series, and following through with the day’s “course of action” past today isn’t required, but is highly recommended because honestly, you can’t experience the benefits of anything in just one day.

My goal for this series is for you to follow through with the suggestions that are given and pick up positive habits along the way. While you most likely won’t retain everything and apply everything in this series to your life, the one’s that work best for you will help you continue to improve your life on an ongoing basis.

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