- 7 Steps to keep a personal journal
- 1-Choose your journal
- 2-Create a routine
- 3-Write every day
- 3-Date your annotations
- 4-Write about your problems
- 5-Let ideas flow freely
- 6-reread what you have written
- 7-Ask questions
Making an intimate personal diary is not just a habit of teenagers in love or an old custom of the last century that has fallen into disuse. Starting to write your experiences in a notebook has psychological as well as physical benefits, which can dramatically improve your quality of life.
Writing down your daily reflections and what you have done throughout the day can allow you to be aware of your progress, mistakes and successes, the patterns of behavior that abound in your life, your desires or what you want to avoid.
It will especially help you to reflect on your life, on the path you are following. Also, when you write you become more aware of your current situation and that can help you solve problems.
On the other hand, you will be able to express your emotions, which is healthy for psychological well-being. Along with this, in the future you can review how you felt in the past or think about what decisions you made to get where you are.
7 Steps to keep a personal journal
1-Choose your journal
It can be a notebook, a notepad, a blank book, a special mobile application that allows you to easily keep a personal diary, or a file from your computer's word processor.
Whether you choose a physical or virtual notebook to capture your daily experiences, your thoughts and feelings, both options are a good tool to better manage your emotional life.
2-Create a routine
Writing a personal diary represents a time, a space that you will dedicate to yourself, to free your thoughts and your emotions and that will help you to organize your ideas, to know yourself more, to understand yourself and even to better solve your problems.
You can choose a certain time of day to carry out this activity, for example, when you get home from work or before going to sleep, or you can also always keep your diary with you to write when you feel like it, in a library or in a cafeteria for example.
It should be a place where you feel comfortable. Whichever option you prefer, creating your typing routine is important.
3-Write every day
Try to write daily, even if it's just a few lines. If you are not sure what to write, you can ask yourself questions such as:
- What have I achieved today?
- I've learned?
- What problems have arisen?
- How have I felt about these issues?
- How can I solve them?
- What are my projects?
The habit of writing helps you reflect on yourself, increases your creativity and can even help improve your self-esteem, because it is a great way to get to know yourself a little more.
If you want, you can incorporate some creative ideas into your journal. You can include drawings, photos or songs, there are no limits, feel free to be and write everything you want, expressing your most intimate feelings.
3-Date your annotations
It may seem like a minor detail, but it really isn't. Dating your notes will help you evaluate your progress.
When you reread what you have written previously, you will be able to see how you have evolved over time, how you have improved or how your perspectives have changed regarding a certain situation.
You will be surprised to know how quickly keeping a personal diary helps you improve emotionally.
4-Write about your problems
After a difficult, emotionally charged day, nothing better than to sit down and write everything down in your personal journal. Ideas that seem tangled at first soon become clear in your mind.
Keeping a journal helps you connect with yourself, understand yourself better, and ward off confusing thoughts or emotions.
For writing to be truly therapeutic, you need to write about those negative facts that you wouldn't tell anyone else.
They can be related to job loss, relationship problems, family malfunction, or doubts about your own identity.
As you write, describe the problem and your experiences with it. This can change and improve your understanding of the problem and the experiences related to it.
Ask yourself: what happened? How did I feel about it? And why did I feel that way? You will see how writing everything in your journal can help you overcome any difficulties.
Feel free to express everything, even your darkest thoughts. After all, this will only be read by you. Nothing you write can "be wrong." This is a great acceptance exercise that can greatly improve your self-esteem.
Writing will allow you to better process important day-to-day events. Putting your emotions on paper will prevent your mind from deceiving you tomorrow by altering stored memories, which happens frequently.
If you tell your diary what happened and how you lived it, your mind can no longer alter the experience and deceive you in the future into thinking that it was more terrible or not as serious as it really was.
Another good idea may be to write about important questions that perhaps at this moment have no answer, but that in the future you will be able to answer, thus leading the common thread of your own story.
5-Let ideas flow freely
When writing, don't think too much about the sentence's grammar, punctuation, or spelling.
According to a study carried out by the University of California Riverside in 2006, a very positive effect was observed in people who spent an average of 15 minutes a day writing their negative experiences, letting the words flow without much control, focusing mainly in his deepest feelings.
By journaling, you will improve your self-confidence and your motivation for life. You will explore cognitive and emotional areas that are often difficult to access.
Through writing you will improve your emotional life, release mental stress and in this way, your immune system and physical health will also improve.
6-reread what you have written
Keeping a journal can not only be good for your mental health today, but it also has great value for the future.
When you've been writing for a while, you can reread what you've written and look back at your life.
Reading what you have written weeks, months or even a year ago can help you identify the behavior patterns of your life and observe how your behaviors and emotions have evolved.
You will be able to evaluate your mistakes and your successes and even remember beautiful moments lived.
7-Ask questions
When you have something to solve or something to achieve, one of the best ways is to ask yourself questions.
It's a habit that Einstein had. In fact, the questions helped him to develop his theories about the photoelectric effect or about special and general relativity.
Psychologists say that recording the experiences in a diary is an important instrument for the mental process because it helps to rearrange the psyche.
So don't waste any more time, grab a notebook and pencil and start your personal journal today.
You will see how soon you begin to feel much better about yourself.