Journaling is a wonderful practice that can help you find clarity, reach your goals, and find your next direction in life. But if you feel bored with it, don’t know what to write about, or find that you aren’t being completely open and honest, you may be doing it wrong. While there are no rules with journaling, you could be unintentionally taking away from the many benefits it provides you.
1. You Aren’t Enjoying the Process
If you find journaling to be incredibly dull, uninteresting or simply not helpful all it could be because of the way you approach it and the mindset you have. Before you begin writing take a moments to meditate or practice mindfulness. Reflect on your emotions the challenges you’re facing the aspects of your life that bring you joy and your future plans. Cultivate a mindset of gratitude, positivity and kindness before putting pen to paper.
2. You Keep Using it Like a Diary
While many people do actually benefit from using their journals just to write about their day, this isn’t the best option for everyone. Look at how you are journaling, and determine whether or not you are actually digging deep or just using it like a diary, where you list what you did today, and didn’t actually get to your thoughts or emotions.
3. You Never Have Anything to Say
If you ever find yourself stuck when you open your journal not knowing what to write there are a couple of remedies. One way to overcome this challenge is to utilize prompts. These prompts consist of questions or statements that provide you with a topic to explore in your journal. They often spark ideas in your mind about what you would like to express in your writing.
Another option, for those moments when you feel like you have nothing to say is to create a list. The content of the list can vary from day, to day; for instance today you could jot down three of your moments while tomorrow you can record five goals you have set for the upcoming week.
4. Your Stress Has Increased Since Journaling
Journaling should be a source of relief, than adding to your stress. If you feel overwhelmed or if journaling itself is exacerbating your stress levels it’s important to understand the underlying reasons. Take a moment to reflect on the topics you’ve been writing about and how you treat yourself in those entries. If every journal entry becomes a vent session or focuses on the aspects it could well be contributing to the issue. Consider incorporating at one aspect, about yourself and expressing gratitude in your journal as well.
5. You Find Yourself Holding Back a Lot
The reason you want to keep your journal to yourself is that holding back and not being open and honest with yourself really halts your progress. You need to be able to be candid if you want to find any sort of clarity. Journaling is a process and one that can do amazing things, but not if you find that you are filtering out certain parts of your life because you fear who might find it one day.
