A journal is a habit, a practice, a chance to connect with yourself, a space where you can explore your deepest thoughts and emotions; recall what happened throughout the day, engage in imaginary dialogues with others, or prepare yourself to face a difficult situation.
More than just a record of actions like “I went to this place today and that happened to me,” journaling is about creating a safe space to be with yourself.
Like all habits, journaling requires willpower, commitment, and an initial structure to ensure it becomes a habit over time. Willpower in the sense of having a strong enough desire to overcome laziness, overcome the fear of what you might discover if you write freely, and nurture the desire to write.
Do you want to start journaling? Perhaps you’ve kept a journal in the past and want to pick it up again, or maybe you’re exploring creative writing and want to strengthen your practice. Perhaps writing is always on your mind, but you don’t know how to take the next step and dedicate yourself to it regularly.
In this article, I share some reflections and practical suggestions for starting and maintaining a personal journal.
2. What are the benefits of writing a diary?
“It’s good and pleasant to keep a journal and fill it with your things, with your being: poems, dreams, dialogues, portraits, letters, memories, observations, reflections, perceptions, intuitions, confessions, drawings, quotes. It means that you take your life seriously and care enough to see it sincerely, to see it and tell the truth.”
It should be an essential and ongoing exercise in self-discovery: gradually finding your voice, your truths, your story.”Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy
There are many studies that document the benefits of personal writing, so I won’t cite them all. The starting point is usually Pennebaker’s study; if you’d like to learn more about it, take a look at this article I wrote to try to answer the question: Is writing therapeutic?
Personally, I don’t believe writing is therapeutic in itself, but rather that, like any other creative endeavor, it’s an expressive resource that, besides being rewarding, can help you get to know yourself better and take better care of yourself. Among other reasons, this is because, unlike thought, which tends to circle back on itself and return to familiar territory, writing always reveals new paths. But it must be nurtured with patience, calm, and great care.
In any case, the most important thing isn’t the benefits or the reasons why other people keep a journal, nor is it how they do it. What’s most important for you to start the habit and maintain it, to enjoy it and learn to become increasingly comfortable in that encounter with yourself, to know and unknow yourself, are your own reasons. And the strategies that help you solidify the practice:
“There are surely hundreds of ways to write that can be beneficial. Think of these suggestions as general guidelines, not as the absolute truth. In fact, when you write, experiment to see what works best.”James Pennebacker
So the first thing I’ll suggest when we talk about ways you can start writing the first few lines is that you think about the reasons why you want to do it.
Of all the lists of benefits I know, my favorite is the one proposed by Kathleen Adams in *Journal to the Self* and *Journal Therapy: Writing for Healing and Change* (Center for Journal Therapy).
In addition to translating it, I’ve adapted it based on my experience working with others and my own writing practice.
I hope it helps you connect with your reasons for starting or resuming the habit of writing, but if you’re looking for practical and concrete suggestions to get started, you can skip to the next section.
1. Writing as a map
When we’re going through a period of change, we sometimes feel like jugglers on a tightrope in a dark room; there are moments when we can’t remember where we came from, and it’s difficult to visualize where we’re going.
Anyone who has experienced this or is currently going through it knows how difficult it is to stay grounded when you don’t recognize yourself in your old skin and haven’t yet settled into the new one.
A journal can be a transitional space that reminds you of your goals and progress, and also of the place you’re leaving behind. This way, you can better orient yourself when you feel lost, when you can’t find your bearings, or remember who you are right now.
It will also help you remember your goals and objectives, why they are important to you, and how you plan to achieve them. This will help you bring them to fruition, not magically, but because you’ll have a guide and be able to focus on them.
2. Connect with your intuition
Humberto Maturana says that we are rational and emotional beings; both aspects are equally important, and they must interact and be in balance.
However, we have the bad habit of giving too much space to the rational, to thoughts, as if by overthinking until our heads are smoking, we could solve everything.
The practice of journaling gradually connects you with your emotional wisdom, with your essence.
For example, it helps you see that finding the answers isn’t always the most important thing, but rather asking the right questions and holding onto them long enough.
Or realizing that you often know the answers, but you don’t trust them, or avoid facing them because they are painful.
One of the fundamental premises of personal writing is honesty with yourself; “ tell your truth,” as the narrator in A Monster Calls urged.
You might find yourself skirting around what you truly feel or what’s important to you in the beginning, but if you keep practicing, you’ll reach your center.
In this way, after a while, you’ll learn to find the questions and answers within yourself. You won’t be infallible—we never are—but you’ll get much closer to the wisdom of your own intuition.
3. Broaden your perspective
Journaling allows you to gain a broader perspective on your life; to see the big picture, to step back and take a bird’s-eye view. Only in this way will you be able to break free from habitual thought patterns and move in wider spirals.
Putting your worries on paper eases your mental calm, and that will allow you to have a broader perspective, which, in this case, can make it easier to make decisions and solve problems by allowing you to consider all the alternatives and evaluate them more calmly.
You will realize that there are alternatives to the interpretation you are giving to the facts, and also that there are other perspectives; other people involved in the events.
4. Managing emotions and thoughts
When you practice writing regularly and in a structured way, the writing process itself becomes self-regulating, helping you manage your emotions and thoughts.
Little by little, you’ll become aware of when you’re getting stuck in loops or going in circles, and you’ll be able to break free from them on your own.
You’ll hear an inner voice gently and compassionately say, “Here we go again,” just as you would to anyone else. And you’ll move toward new, broader, more comfortable horizons—horizons that are more truly yours.
Events, worries, and emotions are transformed when you put them on paper; they become something you can name, begin to understand, and manage. If you want to unravel the map of your emotions, you can add to your writing practice a record of those that are most important to you each day: the emotions you enjoy and those you try to avoid, those that surprise you.
Thus, a personal journal can be a valuable complement to psychotherapy, highly recommended both for those beginning therapy and for psychotherapists and other professionals who work with individuals.
When combined with narrative practices, writing can be a powerful tool for community intervention, but that is another story, and as such, it should be told elsewhere.
5. Managing uncertainty
The habit of writing also helps you manage frustration and uncertainty, two things we tend to struggle with in Western societies.
From the safety of your notebooks, you can explore and embrace your contradictions, insecurities, shadows, and fears. And, at the same time, remember that this too shall pass.
6. Improve communication
The journal also offers you a safe space to consider different ways of approaching a conflict situation: preparing for an interview, communicating a difficult situation in the personal or professional sphere, anticipating feared situations, and connecting with your resources to cope with them.
It will help you improve the way you express yourself: first, you tell yourself, you take some time to organize your thoughts and let all the emotions out; then you decide what and how to communicate it to other people.
7. Your unique way of seeing the world
The daily practice of writing will help you connect with your own voice, with your unique way of seeing the world, and with how you are able to convey that emotion to other people, something that will be very useful and rewarding for any creative project in the personal sphere, such as creative writing or communicating your projects.
If you’re writing fiction, you can add creative writing exercises to your daily practice. In both cases, I’ll talk a little later about how to gather and nurture the seeds of your writing.
Journaling will not only help you connect with your imagination and memories, but also help you judge yourself less and less. You’ll probably still hear those critical voices, but you’ll stop paying them so much attention.
8. Self-knowledge
Your journal is your map and roadmap: everything you record will help you visualize and explore changes, strengths, progress, and goals.
It will also allow you to relive, through reading, moments of happiness and joy —those moments that build life and that we often overlook.
This, in turn, will help you pay more attention to them in your daily life. You’ll have a life record, an album of moments and memories that you can return to whenever you want.
You’ll spend more time with yourself, get to know yourself better, and this will help you take better care of yourself.
It will help you become more aware of what’s happening to you and why, broaden your perspective (once again), and differentiate between what you can and want to change and what you can’t.
In fact, it can help you recognize valuable progress that is within your control but that you’re not acknowledging. It can also help you realize that you’ve faced difficult situations in the past and overcome them. That even in the toughest times, there are moments of light.
It can also be useful for exercising memory, integrating experiences, and fostering critical thinking; dedicating more time to reflection, slowing down the pace of your thinking as much as this accelerated world in which we live allows.