How to Get Started Journaling
Journaling is a great lifelong hobby that provides positive interactions, opportunities for gratitude, and with mindfulness benefits as well. But if you’ve never been a writer or kept a journal before, how do you get started? You can do so in just a few simple steps. The first step, of course, is to buy a journal. There are many choices to choose from: everything from lined or unlined to dotted or graph paper, as well as guided journal that cover every topic imaginable. Read below to figure out which direction you’d like to go in, and then you can buy your first journal to get started!
Daily Diary
One easy and simple way to get started with a journal is the “daily diary” approach. This is as simple as writing a brief summary of your day in a journal. You can simply include the date, and write a summary, or just the highlights and best points, or use the time to process difficult events. This is a simple way to get started, though it may not have the impact some other more intentional approaches will offer you. The daily diary approach is wonderful when you take a trip or travel.
Gratitude Journal
Using your new hobby of journaling to focus on gratitude is sure to improve your life and provide you peace and continent. It is as simple as writing down two or three o ten things you are grateful for every day. These can be simple things like “The food in the fridge” or surprising details like “when the guy let me go in front of him in line” or even challenges you are trying to reframe, such as “the opportunity to develop new skills at work.” You can do this on your own with a blank journal, or you can find a guided gratitude journal to help you come up with different ways to consider and develop your gratitude.
Guided Journals
Guided journals are an excellent way to work on specific goals while also developing a new habit or journaling. Guided journals include prompts to write answers to, so they help you continue your practice even when you may feel you have no particular ideas. They are also crafted in a way that is intended to get results towards a specific goal.
Some of the most powerful topics I’ve seen addressed in guided journals are emotional eating, for example in “Emotional Eating Detox,” or inner child healing work, in the guided journal “Healing Your Inner Child.” Another profound journal is “Body Wisdom Journal,” which develops your intuition and grounds you int o your body for healing and inner confidence and knowing. NO matter the topic you wish you develop and grow awareness of, there is a guided journal to help you.
Now that you know about a few of the many ways to keep a journal, it’s time to pick one out for yourself! Head on down to your local bookseller, or consider one of the beautiful and impactful guided journals from wellness author Alegra Loewenstein.
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