6 ways daily journaling helps

I’ve been journaling for the last 2-3 years, and daily for the last 6 months. Here are some insights I gained:

• Gratitude. Journaling can help you you start to notice details and moments in your life more as you’re trying to remember them to write down later. Looking back at your entries can help you see how much you already have, and how many small things, people, and activities, regularly bring you joy, which can help you feel genuine thankfulness in your heart. Thankfulness then leads to optimism, which can help you stay afloat during some of the bad days.

• A place to vent and solve your problems. When you’re feeling negative, instead of turning to a friend or a loved one, you can turn to your journal instead. This way you won’t constantly overwhelm another person with your emotions, and learn to depend on your own self to write down your problems/frustrations, then come back with a cooler head to analyze and tackle the issue.

• Catalyst for self-improvement. Journaling can help you see trends overtime in your behaviors, your triggers, your thoughts, and your reactions to people and situations. Analyzing your journal entries can help you analyze your current position so you can target your weak areas for improvement more effectively. Seeing patterns in terms of improvement can also inspire you to keep going.

• Ideas bank. Your journal can serve as a place where you can record any random ideas that may be popping in your head, but you can’t do anything with, yet. You can use those ideas later as inspiration. For example, usually the ideas I store help me realize what long-term goals I wish to accomplish, what I want to experience in life, and what topics I want to write about next.

• Memories – a cohesive view of life. Having a place to record my memories helps me have a more cohesive view of my life. I can see how the dots connect. This really helps balance out my view of my life if I’m experiencing depression, which can fragment the way someone views their life by focusing on an overly negative perspective of how things have been, and will be.

• Self-compassion. I realized that having a journal helped me have more compassion for myself and my actions in the past. When you look at your journal entry after a few months, or even years, you’ve become distanced from that experienced via time, and emotionally. That can give you a more objective view of the situation than before. Through looking back at my journals, I was able to see many areas where I was trying hard but not giving myself the credit for it- and finally giving myself the credit helped me take ownership of some of my traits and abilities.

I think one of the coolest things about journaling is just seeing how you change over the years. It’s not always easy to see these changes short-term, but seeing your growth over the years can be quite exciting and rewarding!