Why you should Journal for Self Discovery

Journaling has become a popular form of self-discovery; helping people to identify what they want and more importantly how to get it.  Through journaling you can discover more about yourself and your goals than you ever thought possible.  Journaling will provide insights into your mind and thought patterns that you would never notice otherwise.  It then provides you with a tool to help you retrain your mind to help you achieve your goals and dreams.  But you can’t achieve them if you don’t know what they are.

The number one reason to Journal for Self Discovery is to live a fulfilled life.

Helping you identify with your inner thoughts and feelings

One of the main ways journaling helps with self-discovery, is it enables you to identify with your inner thoughts and feelings.  Understanding yourself is key to living a happy, more fulfilled life.

Journals allow you to write freely and openly.  You’re free from judgement, allowing you to write straight from the heart and uncover things about yourself you never even realised.

Not only does this help you to identify with how you feel, but it also gives you the opportunity to see how you can potentially change your emotional reactions.  You will notice how you think about a certain situation, will effect your feelings.  Reflecting on this and examining your thought patterns is the first step to affecting change in your life.

As you gain insight into your thoughts, you can begin to change the thought patterns and in turn control your feelings – allowing yourself to feel the emotions that serve you.  This is not about being super positive all the time, life is not perfect, in fact it is about a 50/50 split on amazing and blah.  So, we can’t expect to be happy 100% of the time.  It is the realisation that the only thing we can control is our thoughts about a situation, we can choose if those thoughts will serve us or not.  Which leads me to my next point.

It’s an awesome stress reliever

As mentioned above, life is not always perfect and we have many stressors in our lives.  Writing things acts as an amazing stress release.  It’s a well-known that bottling things up can make problems appear much worse than they really are.  Sharing them in your journal therefore, helps to get your thoughts and feelings out of your head in a safe, non-judgemental environment. 

It also allows you to experience any emotion you want at the time.  Controlling your thoughts and, in turn your feelings does not mean we only want to experience positive emotions, there are definitely times when negative emotions are expected and even needed.  It is when your feelings are no longer serving you, you need to reflect.

Writing about a stressful situation also gives you the ability to look back on the situation when you are not “in it”, feeling all the feels, and reflect on your thought patterns and what led to the stress in first place.

A little bit of stress is expected and sometimes necessary to push us through to achieve, but too much can be detrimental to your health and well-being.  Journaling about your experiences can help eliminate some of stress.

You’ll understand what makes you tick

Those who are truly happy and fulfilled, typically know exactly who they are and what they want.  Once you understand what it is you do want and where you want your life to go, you’ll be able to focus on making your dreams and goals a reality.

Understanding what you want in life can be a challenge.  Journaling can help you identify exactly what make you tick.  By writing about your experiences and feelings you begin to realise the activities that make you happy, give you a sense of accomplishment or drive you to improve. 

If you are in a real funk, it can sometimes be difficult to see those patterns and determine what drives you.  Below are some journaling prompts to help you on your way.

• What conversation topic can I get lost in for hours? Is it travel, fashion, children & parenting, renovations, business, self-help, fitness, finance….. the list goes on.  The conversations you are drawn to, are a sign of your passion.
• What do people come to me for? Are people always asking for your advice on baking, managing time, parenting or building a business? Things that come naturally to you, do not always come easily to others, however because it is simply for you to do you tend to disregard it as a skill you can share. 
• If money were no object, what would I do all day? I know the dream is to lay on a beach and do nothing, but believe me when I say I think you would get bored.  However, if you were in a situation where you knew the money was there, what would you do with your days.  Something you would be prepared to do for free is a good indication of what you are passionate about.

Understanding why you are here and what purpose you want to serve is the start to living a fulfilled life.  Doing more of what you love can only bring you joy.

It motivates you to take action

It can be difficult to motivate yourself sometimes, it is strange how we can work super hard to please others but we tend to put our own needs or dreams to the side.  Journaling can be an excellent tool to assist you in taking action.  After doing some work, answering the above questions, considering your thoughts and feelings you can begin to identify what you want in life.  Once you have a goal in mind you can start writing down how you plan to achieve that goal. 

Having your plan written down in front of you motivates you to start putting your plan into action.  It can be very satisfying to tick a few things off your to-do list.  The more you do the more motivated you become. 

It is also a great way to track how far you have come.  Looking back on what you have already achieved provides you with momentum and the drive to move forward still.

It encourages positive thinking

I make part of my daily journaling writing down three things I am grateful for.  This helps to train my brain to look for the positives in my day.  Read our blog post on Gratitude.

As you write down the things in your life you are grateful for, you will begin to see a pattern there too.  If you are still struggling to determine your goals, look at your grateful lists, what are things you appreciate that bring you joy.  Does that list give you an indication of where you should focus your life?

Positive thinking has a major impact on your happiness.  When you start to look at things in a positive light, you’ll start enjoying life a lot more.  Feeling good breeds more positivity – it has a flow on effect. 

Journaling is a powerful tool to use to help you live your best life.  It will help you learn about yourself, relieve stress, help you set goals and achieve them and assist in getting you to focus on the good things in your life.  It is a good reason to pick up a notebook and start writing!

To read more about using your journal for self discovery see this blog post.