1. PEN DOWN YOUR GOALS.
This the Personal favourite part of all the journaling ideas on this list. And it’s also the best part of my morning habit, and it's something that I’ve been doing regularly for over five years. Every day, I get up, take my journal, and rewrite my goals. This is a daily practice for me—I’ll never miss a day for the rest of my life.
There are two reasons you should make this journaling idea a life-long habit:
- Journaling your aims tells you what matters the most to you right now (when you do this, you’ll find that some of the goals you re-write will get more precise, while others will change or get ignored altogether).
- Something mysterious occurs when you constantly write down what you, truly, genuinely want in life—you start to get it. Great thoughts hit you out of nowhere, and your mind forces you to take action on them till your goals become a reality. It’s a beautiful thing.
Here’s how this journaling idea works:
- Every morning, before starting your day, open up a new page in your journal and write down what you want to achieve.
- Do this regularly for few days — get up, rewrite your goals, don’t look at the previous day — and what you’ll see is that your aims will begin to clarify, modify, or change completely.
2. EVERY DAY JOURNAL ( DIARY ENTRY )
The daily log is when you write every little thing about your day in your journal like, what you did, what you accomplished, what you ate, whom you attended and chatted with. The best part about this journaling practice is that you have a handwritten record of what you’ve done on any given day.
Here’s how this idea works:
- Get a journal that’s easy enough to carry with you anywhere you go.
- As many things occur throughout your day, simply write them.
- You can draw figures, or record them as accurate notes—it’s entirely up to you.
3. WRITE DOWN THE THINGS YOU’RE GRATEFUL FOR
Here are three things that we think you should grateful for every day:
- Your family.
- Doing something that helps people change their lives and accomplish their goals.
- The food that is on your plate, The Shelter that is above your head, and the clothes that are covering your skin.
4. JOURNALING WILL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM
It's excellent to journal about your difficulties because our minds tend to enlarge problems, creating them seem larger than they are. But when we record our problems down, we minimize them.
It's not like that, you’re difficulties run away the minute you put pen to paper, but you do understand that your difficulties aren’t as big as they seem in your brain.
Here’s how this journaling can solve your problems:
- Whenever you’re faced with a difficulty, open a fresh page in your journal, and write out your problem as a question at the top of the page. For example: “I’ve been awarded a promotion at work. I’ll be earning more money, but my daily commute increases by an hour. Should I take the promotion? ”
- Now, start a Pros and Cons list to help you choose what to do about the obstacle. For example: “I should take the raise because…” or “I shouldn’t take the raise because…”
- The purpose is to get clear about what you want and find a clarification to your problem(s).
5. JOURNALING FOR STRESS
Stressing about something will make our body tired, it’s normally because our thinking is disseminated. Or because we’re pissed off.
In our experience, journaling for stress looks to have a therapeutic effect. If you are annoyed about something or frustrated about something just take out your journal and start recording it.
Once you have gotten the bullshit out of your head, something wonderful happens, just start writing about your feelings. Start asking yourself why you are feeling like this, Write it all down. Get it all out. And it helps. It genuinely helps.
The stress may not pass away completely, but it’s a much better option than drugging yourself up to cover it all up.
6. “WHAT’S THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TODAY?”
At night, take your journal and record down the only best thing that happened to you today. And certainly, you’ve got to pick just ONE thing. The reason this specific question – “What’s the best thing that happened today?” – is so powerful is that it forces you to shift your focus onto something positive before dozing off to sleep… And you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that it’s better to go to sleep thinking about something positive rather than it is to go to sleep thinking about something negative.
Here are some examples of how I’ve put this journaling idea to work in my own life:
Here’s how this journaling idea works:
- Open up to a fresh page in your journal, or, if possible, have a small journal dedicated specifically for this purpose to keep next to your bed (which is what I do).
- Every night, before bed, take out your journal and answer this question: “What’s the best thing that happened today?” Then simply begin to write out the single best thing that you experienced today. That’s it.
- Your answer can be a single sentence or several sentences. But the key to doing this consistently is to keep it simple. Write it down and get your ass to bed.