How to Start Journaling for Personal Growth

A good journaling practice allows you to have your own coach and therapist whenever you need. While it’s different from working with a coach who brings objectivity, fresh perspectives, strategies, and tools, journaling empowers you to explore your thoughts and feelings independently and can positively complement your coaching sessions. It helps you ask the right questions, gain insights, and develop self-awareness at any time. Journaling is a cost-effective, readily available way to support your personal growth and well-being.

To put it simply, journaling is answering a good question. It is a way of finding yourself and holding yourself, it’s a way to figure out who you are and what you want and need. It’s also a way of playing with your future safely.

What is Journaling? And is it like keeping a diary?

To many people, journaling is like keeping a diary, but they are not the same. A journal entry may be related to time but isn’t bound by it. Journaling can blend past, present, and future, mixing facts, feelings, and creative freedom. In contrast, a diary is more factual.

Journaling can take many forms: drawing, using colors, or writing. What unlocked journaling for me was answering a simple question like, “How am I feeling?” A few years ago, I couldn’t answer that accurately, but now, after hundreds of entries, I can find the answer swiftly. My emotional intelligence has expanded thanks to this enquiry.

Feelings are like a fishing float on the surface of our unconscious, worth understanding so you can see what they are hooked onto. For example, if I journal that I’m feeling irritable, I can recognise I’m prone to losing my temper. This allows me to communicate with my kids and manage my emotions better, rather than reacting unexpectedly.

What are the Benefits of Journaling?

Journaling is a powerful tool for self-discovery and emotional regulation. It provides a private space to process thoughts and feelings, fostering greater self-awareness and personal growth.

1. Emotional Well-being

Journaling is a way to clear out your stagnant and stuck energy. Asking yourself a good question and then mining your system for the answer helps to empty you out, in a good way.

For example lets say you had to do some public speaking. You might be feeling unregulated and anxious beforehand. Answering the questions: ‘how do I feel?’; ‘how can I make this easier on myself?’; ‘who could help me?’; ‘what can I do to relax beforehand?’ — all of these questions will enable you to prepare.

But lets say you make some mistakes or get asked some hard questions. It would be valuable to journal on that in order to empty out the experience. Perhaps because all eyes were on you and you didn’t have a lot of time you may have had to push your actual experience to one side and keep going despite the fact that you were flustered, flushed and embarrassed.

Journaling on: ‘well how did that go?’ for a few pages would help you to make sense of it and empty out the propensity to unconsciously turn it into a self-shaming experience.

By virtue of this journaling can help alleviate stress, reduce anxiety and look after your mental health.

2. Mental Clarity and Focus

Sometimes we become conflicted. Shall I buy this house with the big garden or the one that’s closer to the school or perhaps the one that’s a bit further out but will have a lower mortgage.

If you don’t process these conflicting ideas they can keep on bouncing around in your head and banging off each other. This takes up a lot of energy and mental capacity.

Sitting down even for 15 minutes might save you hours worth of incessant absent minded analysis.

In this example you could create a Pro’s and Con’s list but it may be more valuable to explore what values are being expressed or compromised by each of the options. Or you could journal about a day in the life of living in each of these houses – this will help you step into the reality of your decision and clear out the redundant ruminating.

3. Personal Growth

Whether you are simply journaling to answer the question: “what do I need/want right now?” or you are tackling something like “what would I love my average week to look like in 5 years?” either timeframe will yield clarity and insight.

When you’re journaling it’s just for you. You are not trying to impress anyone so you can be 100% honest. By answering questions in your journal or even just dumping a ‘stream of consciousness’ onto the page you will get to see who you are and what’s important to you.

This self-knowledge is helps you become more conscious about your own motivations, patterns, beliefs and with this you then have more conscious choice over your whole life. Most of us are running on unconscious conditioned habits most of the time so if we want to change ourselves and our future it pays to become more aware of who we are.

Writing down what you want/desire/need and refining it greatly enhances the chances of it happening. As the saying goes: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. Journaling can be like creating the map.

Types of Journaling

Journaling comes in various forms, each offering unique benefits to cater to different needs and preferences. By exploring different types of journaling, you can find the practice that best supports your personal growth and well-being.

1. Daily Journaling

Anything you do daily for 30 days becomes a habit. Good habits are hyper useful because they remove the hard work of having to ‘do the thing’. Our systems are so good at automating tasks that we repeat, like driving a car or brushing your teeth.

Making time to journal every day for the next 30 days will install this habit. It’s tempting to be too ambitious at the start e.g. I’ll journal for an hour every morning before breakfast.

This may work for you but most people won’t be able to sustain this change. I’d recommend picking a time that feels doable to journal every day, say 10min, and then halfing it. So you now have a commitment to journal daily for the next month for 5minutes.

By all means you can keep going if you wish but just don’t be overzealous as you may struggle to go again the next day. Better to do a little of something every day versus a lot rarely especially when forming a new habit.

What time of day should you journal?

Journaling before bed is perfect for some, it enables them to dump out their thoughts and feelings that have accumulated during the day. For me it can have the effect of overstimulating me and this can disrupt my sleep.

I find it best to journal in the morning. But now that I have the habit locked in and have been journaling consistently for over 4 years I find that I journal more ad-hoc. When I can sense a mental or emotional knot in my system or a problem I want to unravel.

2. Gratitude Journaling

This is a brilliant place to start. Writing a list of even just 3 things you are grateful has been scientifically proven to change our mind. The first time you do this it may take ages to get to three. But after a while you’ll have to stop yourself from filling the page. This develops a ‘muscle’ in your brain that then searches for the good in life and inversely reduces the amount of negativity, blaming, victim-mentality your mind will endure.

You can be grateful for anything, what about running clean water or not being at war… or that you have a roof over your head.

Gratitude journaling is so valuable, I often recommend it to clients. This TED talk helps explain why it is important.

3. Bullet Journaling

Bullet Journaling has taken off recently. It’s basically a structure that you repeat and journal on daily. It might include what you want to get done that day, that week, that month. It may include a calendar to capture this. There may also be prompts to ask about your mood or food (and how that may affect your mood).

To get going all you really need is a blank journal and a pen (or a few colours). It can be fun to get some templates or stickers too just to keep it playful and tactile. You can use these to distinguish goals from feelings for example.

4. Stream of Consciousness Journaling

In her book The Artists Way (which has over 11 thousand 4.5 star reviews), Julia Cameron offers the exercise of Morning Pages. Basically you write until you have filled 3 pages. You write and write and write about anything, nothing, whatever. This, she explains, clears you out in order to be more creative.

Some people call this Golden Pages. It’s usually recommended that you never return to read what you’ve written, that’s not the point. The point is to dump out what’s going on in your head so that you can be free of it. Be warned, you’ll surprise yourself about the deeper thoughts you didn’t know you had.

How to Start Journaling

Starting a journaling practice can seem daunting, but with the right approach and tools, it can become a fulfilling and beneficial habit. Here are some steps to help you get started on your journaling journey.

1. Choose Your Journaling Tools

Some people get really into stationary, others just need a cheap ring bound jotter. When I started I went with a fancy leather bound journal. I did this for a few books worth of journaling before switching to a good quality A5 size copybook.

The fancy journals are nice but:
a) They take up more space (in your bag and in a drawer)
b) They tend to have more pages and therefore take longer to fill (I like the satisfaction of completing journals quite quickly)
c) They are heavier to lug around
d) They don’t always open flat so writing near the centre binding can be annoying.

I do not recommend using a digital solution. There is something about the tactile nature of writing / drawing that is different. Plus I want to be less on devices. My phone has a built in stylus so when I don’t have my journal to hand I use it.

There is something about buying a nice pen / journal which can help to get you started but don’t let this step absorb a lot of energy / enthusiasm, remember the key is to journal and not spend an age buying things. You could always reward yourself with a nice pen after a month of daily journaling.

2. Set a Regular Time

If you are trying to form a new habit it pays to journal at the same time every day. Or, you can ‘stack’ the habit off the same thing that you are already doing every day. For example: after I make my first coffee I’ll sit for 10minutes and journal OR when I get into my car in the car park at work I will journal for 10min before turning the key.

Some people like to journal before bed to decompress and ‘cleanse’ the thoughts and feelings, others, myself included can find this too stimulating and therefore it disrupts my sleep so I am an advocate of journaling in the morning. Or over lunch. When would be best for you? Just do that for a month… Change it in 30 days if you want.

3. Find Your Style

What works for me is 99% of the time is writing answers to questions that are relevant to that moment. The big and basic ones are:

How am I feeling right now?
What do I need / want / desire? [Important to note that I don’t often actually go and get what I want but it helps to understand and to look at the answer thematically eg if I want to curl up an watch a film it probably means I am pooped and need rest and sleep but maybe also comfort and connection.]

You may be into doodling or drawing. Or lists. Or morning pages… Or coloured pens… Be creative, try stuff, repeat what works and mix it up every now and then.

4. Forget the rules

Nobody reads my journals! Even me, I rarely ever return to them. I keep t hem and I may go back over them one day. I like having them, they feels like an emory board that I’ve used to sand off my sharp (cutting) edges.

I like to write fast. I put a date and time stamp on the top so I can refer back to it if I ever want to (I rarely ever do). I also write on the front of the book what I journaled about roughly if I think I may want to return to reference it in the future.

So, I’ve established a few rules that work for me but they are not so much ‘rules’ and I encourage you to throw out any rules that you feel you need to comply to. Aside from, perhaps, the rule to journal at the same point and daily if you want to establish a journaling habit. Otherwise forget the rules and just do what feels good and worthwhile.

5. Use prompts

The Irish Poet and Author John O’Donohue proposed these questions in his book Benedictus

“At the end of the day – a mirror of questions”

What dreams did I create last night?
Where did my eyes linger today?
Where was I blind?
Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?
What did I learn today?
What did I read?
What new thoughts visited me?
What differences did I notice in those closest to me?
Who did I neglect?
Where did I neglect myself?
What did I begin to day that might endure?
How were my conversations?
What did I do today for the poor and the excluded?
Did I remember the dead today?
Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?
Where did I allow myself to receive love?
With whom today did I feel most myself?
What reached me today? How deep did it imprint?
Who saw me today?
What visitations had I from the past and from the future?
What did I avoid today?
From the evidence – why was I given this day?

James’ prompts:

How am I feeling right now?
What do I need/want/desire?
What am I grateful for?
When have I said yes when I meant no, or no when I meant yes? Today or in the past few days.
What have I avoided risking because it might not be perfect or right or I am scared of the outcome?
Who am I? (keep asking it until the quick answers fade, then keep asking!)
Why am I here? ( “-ditto-” )
What’s the most important thing (in/for my life)?
Who do I want to serve?
How best can I serve them?
Where does Joy come from?
A few examples of me in Flow (in the zone) are…
What Parts of me are in the driving seat?
What Parts of me are getting overlooked or left behind?

Conclusion

Like any journaling, the key is to do it in a way that suits your creative and learning style.

Whether you need to be more analytical or more positive, journaling can help. Over the past four years, journaling has been a huge gift to me.

Initially, I resisted it, but once I started, it became invaluable. Just grab a piece of paper and answer, “What do I need to start journaling?” If you answered on paper, congrats on your first journal entry!

I thought I was emotionally intelligent four years ago, but now I’m much more attuned to myself and others, thanks to regularly asking, “How am I feeling?” It can be a quick or lengthy process.

Women tend to be better at knowing their feelings than men but less good at understanding their needs. So it may make more sense, if you are a woman, to focus on “What do I need/want/desire?” and “How can I communicate that?”

If you’re feeling low, commit to writing “3 things you are grateful for” daily for a month—it can/will transform your outlook.

If you want to explore how journaling can help you understand and leverage your strengths, reach out to me for a trial session. Good luck!

James O'Halloran

As a Business Coach I help Founders* and those in Career Transition unlock problems and increase self-mastery so that they are confident in their direction and leadership. Through Career and Business Coaching, I help people who want to disrupt the(ir) status quo.