The Life-Changing Benefits of Daily Journaling

Most people dismiss the journaling habit as something only the creative or super-intelligent people do. As you are going to see, everyone can benefit from journaling. Most of the great men like Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill had journals. So, how is writing a journal related to greatness?

Writing a journal alone won’t make you great. Your results entirely depend on how you use your journal. Today, we are going to discuss the life-changing benefits of daily journaling so that you can improve yourself. If you don’t know how to start journaling, this article will help you.

1. Journaling helps you record insights that touch you

The average human being has sixty to sixty-five thousand thoughts every day. Among them are great thoughts, ideas, and lessons that you can learn from your experiences every day. Instead of letting them vanish, you can record them. You’ll only progress in life if you learn from your lessons. Writing your thoughts and insights down helps you remember them clearly. Writing down your thoughts also helps you understand yourself on a deeper level.

2. You can write down your goals and track your progress

According to Tracy, a paper writer at best essays, a writing service that provides dissertation writing help, people who write down their goals are ten times more likely to achieve them than people who don’t. A goal that is not in writing is a wish. And wishes can’t help you move forward.

Writing down your goals forces you to be clear on what you want to achieve. And this motivates you to start and complete tasks that are essential to your success. The process of writing down goals will force you to come up with strategies, ask questions, and brainstorm.

Journaling helps you track your progress. At the end of the day, it’s not the number of tasks that you complete that matters but your results. Tracking your progress enables you to focus on your goals and spot opportunities that will help you achieve them. Your journal will help you avoid procrastinating and organize your life to get more things done.

3. Learn from past experiences

Your journal will always reveal what happened to you in the past. While the majority of people, weep, complain, blame, or criticize others for things that happened to them in the past, you’ll be a step ahead of them. You’ll learn from your past experiences to become a better person.

The things that made you angry or unhappy a few months or years ago won’t have a place in your heart in the future. Journaling allows you to take full responsibility for your life. Recording your memorable events and revisiting them later will have a profound effect on your life.

4. Organizing your thoughts

Another great benefit of journaling is; your life gets organized. If you tend to have a difficult time organizing your thoughts and schedules, you have to try journaling. You can start by using a bullet journal.

A bullet journal will help you have an organizing system for your life. You can create different sections for each area of your life. To evolve and unlock your potential, you need to grow in all areas of your life. A journal is a tool that will help you improve yourself in the long run.

In your journal, you can record some of the ways that will help you make improvements in your relationships, career, spirituality, parenting, and health to name a few. Having goals for each area of your life is a great thing.

However, failing to write them down in an organized way will lead to confusion and failure. You can consider having different journals for different subjects to be more organized. The clearer you are, the greater the chances of achieving your goals.

5. You can release toxic emotions

Today, we have a variety of planners, journals, and apps that help us start and complete our tasks on time. However, we are distracted like never before because the very tools that we use to work with can also tempt us to do what’s fun and easy.

When we feel tired, stressed out, or frustrated, we try to numb our minds by scrolling our phones or playing games. Social media and video games have become the new media of relaxation. Spending time on social media doesn’t always relieve stress or calm our minds. It makes us forget about our goals.

You should rely on a medium that will help you channel your thoughts and solve your problems effectively. You can use your journal as a brain dump or for brainstorming. It will help you clear your mind, make informed decisions and relax.  You don’t have to ask for advice or look for answers on the internet. All the answers are with you. All you need to do is use your tools effectively.

6. You can exercise gratitude

I cannot emphasize enough on the importance of gratitude. This, right here, is the key to having more in your life. Human beings are wired to always crave for more in life. You can only progress in life if you are always striving to have more.

The moment you start feeling satisfied with things as they are, death starts to creep in. While wanting more all the time is great, it can affect you negatively. People with a scarcity mindset believe that there is never enough for them in the world. And this leads to doubt, fear, and anxiety.

By practicing gratitude, you’ll shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. Instead of focusing on what you lack, you’ll be focused on what you have. And you’ll end up having more things to be happy about. Gratitude eliminates disappointing thoughts and makes you see the good side of life. You can exercise gratitude by writing down the things that you are grateful for every day.

7. You become self-disciplined

Self-discipline is the number one quality you should develop if you want to achieve your goals. Self-discipline is all about doing what needs to be done whether you like it or not. We all have days when we just want to sleep and relax. However, showing up every day no matter how you feel will help you succeed in life.

Remember, the only thing that stands between you and your goals is self-discipline. One of the great benefits of journaling is helping you form the habit of showing up every day. Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more it grows.

8. Journaling accelerates the healing process

Most therapists encourage their students to write. Writing is a form of therapy that helps you connect with your intuition and get answers. It is an outlet that helps you get through the most difficult experiences that you might not want to share.

It helps in confronting complex problems and finding a way to solve them effectively. Journaling allows you to listen to your thoughts and express them instead of creating a storm in your mind. While writing can solve a lot of problems, it’s always important to seek help.

9. Journaling helps in solving problems

We all face problems every single day. How successful you’ll become entirely depends on your ability to solve problems. Whenever you see a successful person, you see a person who can solve problems better than other people.

One of the best ways to solve problems is by writing them down on a journal. As we said earlier, writing enhances clarity. Once you understand the problem clearly, you’ll be in a better position to solve it. Plus, you can always refer to it later whenever you face a similar problem.

Conclusion

There are a lot of reasons to start journaling. All you need is a small diary and a pen. If you don’t know how you’ll start, you can try bullet journaling or freewriting. Freewriting is writing anything that comes to mind for a certain period. Journaling will help you understand yourself and move closer towards your goals.

Isabell Gaylord

Isabell is a professional writer, journalist, and content marketing specialist based in Chicago. She specializes in such spheres as marketing, business, and education. You can find her on Twitter.