How to write a journal

People come to journaling for a variety of reasons, but for all the paths that lead to the pen, there is one key to making your journal journey a success.

That key is: consistency.

Building your journaling into a habit – building it into your daily routine – will ensure you get the most benefit out of your writing.

The next step is to then put some structure to it.

We’ll give you some tips on structure in a second, but we should first discuss a couple of points, because no matter what your routine, structure, or motivation for journaling is, we’re going to recommend you DO NOT journal digitally.

No, we’re not trying to subtly suggest you buy our journal (we’ll just straight-up say you should try the Story of My Life Journal) – by all means grab some paper and a pen from around your house.

We’re recommending you don’t journal digitally because the science is quite clear on the benefit of physically writing, so let’s have a quick look at that.

The power of the pen

The reason we suggest handwriting is the same reason we made your Story of My Life Journal a physical book and not an app (and, trust us, the latter would have been FAR cheaper) – it’s better for you.

Journaling – particularly when done regularly and objectively – helps build competency in areas such as emotional self-awareness, self-actualisation, optimism, gratitude, empathy, assertiveness, and problem solving.

Handwriting activates the brain’s Reticular Activating System (RAS), which is responsible for prioritising that which requires immediate focus and filters everything else out. 

That means increased focus on the goals and self-reflection you deem important, and increased learning capabilities and memory retention for that which is important.

Writing stimulates and activates parts of the brain your digital device doesn’t, providing a far richer experience that helps you produce genuine results.

Journaling and goalsetting

They’re a match made in Heaven. They go hand-in-hand. They’re the inseparable and dynamic duo.

Journaling and goalsetting.

So, why are they the perfect couple?

Here’s a simple truth: you can’t expect to hit a target you’re not aiming at.

Goalsetting enables you to plan who you want to be, and what you want to achieve in life, then work towards making it happen.

Your Story of My Life Journal is designed to provide the tools and structure – and the daily reinforcement – to support you in that.

But there’s so much more to goalsetting than simply direction (although, that’s pretty good) – there’s meaning and purpose, there’s positive emotion, there’s reduction in anxiety and depression.

Goalsetting and the act of moving towards a goal has been found to support positive effects in all those areas, which we document extensively in your Story of My Life Journal in a section called “The Psychology of Goalsetting”.

Now, about that structure

What the structure of your journaling looks like will depend on your motivation.

Some people just want to keep a diary and write about their day, while others are looking to keep a daily gratitude journal.

Some use a wellbeing journal as a strategy to reduce and address anxiety and/or depression, or to hit the pause button on ruminating thoughts.

There are those who use journaling as a planner or to plan their days, while some are focused on goalsetting or mindset outcomes.

Then there’s those – like your Story of My Life Journal team – who like an all-rounder journal that covers everything mentioned.

So, the structure of how you approach your journaling will depend on your motivation.

We’re not going to go too deep into the structure of the different journaling motivations, because what you want to get out of your writing will be quite unique and personal, but let’s take a look at some ideas.

The daily diary

This is probably the most basic form of journal writing and, really, what you’re looking to get out of it is to jot down the most significant and meaningful moments, and to look for any opportunities to grow and change.

You might like to consider breaking your structure into morning and evening components, and using the former as a guide to start the day right, and the latter as a period of reflection.

Consider prompts such as these:

• What was something new I learnt today?
• What could I have done differently?
• What was the best part of today?
• Who made the biggest impact on you today?
• How are you feeling after today?

The daily gratitude journal

Gratitude journals have become quite popular, and for anyone interested in expanding their knowledge on the subject, we highly recommend the excellent work of The Resilience Project, which is both an organisation and bestselling book.

Your Story of My Life Journal positions gratitude as part of the three amigos Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness (GEM).

The GEM process focuses on improving your mood, your levels of happiness, and your wellbeing.

Practicing gratitude has been found to increase the frequency and intensity of positive emotions, improve health, assist in dealing with adversity, and help to build strong relationships (see Harvard Medical School, 2011, on our References page).

Similar to the daily diary approach, you might like to do some gratitude journaling in the morning and evening.

Consider prompts such as these:

• What is one thing you’re looking forward to today?
• What’s one thing – big (a special person/people) or small (your morning/daily coffee) – that is awesome right now?
• What’s something about your personality you’re really thankful for?
• What was the best part about today?
• Who did you really appreciate today and why?

The wellbeing journal

Journaling has been shown to have a profound impact on the reduction of stress, anxiety, depression, and worry.

It largely does this through a process psychologists call ‘affect labelling’, which involves focusing on emotions in a rational and logical way – as opposed to being caught up in them or ignoring them – as a method of reducing their intensity.

Research has shown this to have a powerful impact on our wellbeing.

Think of it like this: imagine you have a spare room that you’ve been dumping things in for years.

Every time you add something to it, you close your eyes when you open the door, throw the thing in, then close the door again.

You know you need to clean the room out, but every time you think about opening the door, you get anxious because, while you don’t know precisely what’s on the other side, you know it’s not good.

Your mind treats that room as a doorway to infinite problems because, to your mind, there’s no difference between an “unknown number of problems” and “every possible problem”.

What you find is, when you decide to open the door, your anxiety actually eases, because now you know exactly what you’re dealing with – you’ve gone from infinite problems to a single problem.

Affect labelling works on your emotions and wellbeing in the same way.

A popular emotional intelligence strategy to working through challenging feelings or interrupting an amygdala hijack is the HOW, WHAT, WHY approach: ask yourself how you’re feeling; ask yourself what caused you to feel that way; then instigate deeper and ask yourself why that cause triggered you.

You will likely want to structure your wellbeing journal in a similar fashion.

Consider prompts such as:

• How am I feeling today?
• What is making me feel this way?
• Why? What story or value is this response attached to?
• How could I better look after my mind and body?
• What limiting beliefs or fears are holding me back, and what can I do to overcome them?

The daily/weekly planner

This one doesn’t take much explaining, but there’s massive benefits to it – and we don’t need to cite research, because it’s simply common sense.

We have a saying at Story of My Life Journal: prepare for the preparables.

We all have so much going on in our lives that it makes sense to relieve stress and pressure where we can, and keeping a daily or weekly planner is a great way of doing that.

Getting the pragmatic issues of life – such as meetings, appointments, to-do lists – out of your head and onto paper frees us space for you to think about things that require more time and energy.

It also ensures you can feel as prepared and in control as possible.

If you know you arrive at work at 8:30am and have a meeting at 9am, not only do you know how much time you need to give yourself to ensure you’re not late, but you also know it’s probably not a good idea to start that major project the minute you arrive at the office (or start working from home, given the whole pandemic thing of late!).

The structure of this one can vary, but it’s often a good idea to go weekly, with daily check-ins each evening (because things change and as a reminder to yourself of what’s on the following day).

That’s how the planner component is setup in your Story of My Life Journal, as well as with the added bonus of a monthly calendar.

Consider prompts such as:

• What are the key events (meetings/appointments/obligations) I have this week/tomorrow?
• What do I need to get done this week and how will I spread those tasks out to be achievable?
• Does my schedule enable me to do what I need to do, or do I need to make changes?
• What is a non-negotiable for me this week/tomorrow?
• Have I allowed space for free time/just for me, or have I jam-packed my schedule?

The goalsetting and mindset journal

We dove into the benefits of goalsetting above, so we won’t repeat it here.

Goalsetting starts to expand your journaling – when you embark on goalsetting, you know you’re getting serious.

That’s because the very nature of goalsetting is going to require you to expand your thinking beyond days and weeks, and into months, quarters, and years.

Your Story of My Life Journal approaches this by breaking your goalsetting into the eight dimensions of wellness (find out more) and asking you to consider what the ideal you looks like in each.

You then plot your course on how to get there, chunking your goals from the end-point to what you need to achieve each quarter, and what you need to practically do each month, week, and day to make that happen.

The mindset component enters the fray by employing visualisation, which is a strategy common in both psychology and wellness practices.

You’re encouraged to consider and describe how the ideal you thinks, acts, and feels, and who you need to be to achieve the goals you’ve set yourself.

You will likely want to structure your goalsetting and mindset journal in a similar manner, ensuring your plotting a path and laying out a blueprint that you can actually follow.

Consider prompts such as:

• What is it, precisely, I want to have achieved in 12 months’ time?
• What do I need to have achieved at the halfway point for that to remain possible?
• What does that mean I need to do this month and week?
• Who do I need to be to achieve my goal – how do I need to think, act, and feel?
• What are the habits and/or behaviours I need to change/adopt to achieve my goal?

The all-rounder journal

This is the big one and is when you usually turn to a product, as opposed to attempting to use a spare piece of paper.

That’s not so much a sales pitch for your Story of My Life Journal as it is a simple reality based on practicality.

Your Story of My Life Journal, for example, contains every type of journal we’ve described above, plus more.

And, to achieve that, it’s almost 600 pages – that’s a tough ask for anyone to do manually.

It contains pre-work exercises that help you develop an understanding of who you are, where you want to go, and how you plan on getting there.

It then has daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly guided pages full of prompts, check-ins, and scaffolding to support you throughout the entire year.

All those components are designed to support your wellbeing, mindset, and goalsetting motivations and outcomes.

Over to you

So, by now you should have a pretty good idea on where and how to start your journal/journaling journey.

It might sound like a cliche, but what you get out of journaling will depend on what you put into it.

Remember: the key is consistency.

Look to build habits and make it a part of your routine, then focus on the structure of your journaling practice.

We hope this has helped and that it encourages you to explore the might of the pen.

It can change your life.

So, over to you – and all the best on your journey.