Journalling tips for beginners
Journalling is one of the best practices that helped me become a better person. There are many advantages of journaling. It helps us become smart, helps us become more introspective, helps us become more aware of ourselves, allows us to enjoy our own company. I already have a podcast episode where I spoke about journaling at length. I also discussed about it in detail in Sophia's uncomfortably comfortable podcast. In today's blog, I will share some tips that help you make journalling a more pleasant experience and allows you to stick to it without adding too much pressure.
* So, let us get to the basics and try to understand the meaning of Journalling. So what is journaling?
Journalling or diary writing is similar. Journaling in plain language means having personal notes. It is a space where you pen-down thoughts about things you want to write, an extremely personal and very private space. If I have to explain in one sentence, then Journal is a personified version of your brain.
* So the main confusion comes from the choice we have concerning journals our there, its very easy to get overwhelmed with kind of options we have with journals.
There are so many Journals in the market like
1. Dream Journal
2. Gratitude Journal
3. Daily Journal
4. And God knows what more, you can add the word journal to anything, and bam, you have a new journal hand.
* The ideal thing to do is not to focus on all of these but concentrate on what you feel like writing every day. Despite being into journaling for quite some time now, I am not entirely aware of all the journaling formats. So don't worry about all these different formats, and go with your intuition. Whenever you have decided to Journal, there will be something you want to write about, and you will at least have some vague idea of what you want to do with it. So go for it, write about that, and after giving it a try, you can always try another format if it is not exciting for you anymore. You can always have a Google or YouTube search for different recommendations.
* One thing we all forget is that Journal is a very personal space that helps improve our relationship with ourselves. It makes us comfortable with our thoughts and more appreciative of our beliefs, growth, and achievements. It's like that one good friend who will never judge no matter what and always give you some insightful advice and help. So our relationship with this habit has to be very organic you don't want to force yourself to Journal, or you don't want to blame or curse yourself for missing to journal one day, you can always do it whenever you feel like doing it, you can always do it when you have some excellent free time in hand. Take my case, for example. What I do is freestyle Journaling. I fill my Journal with significant life events, events that I think have taught me something or moments I want to relive, and random thoughts or different perceptions about life that hit my mind. If I think they will go into my Journal, they will help me navigate through my life. I don't journal daily though I want to get into daily journaling. It is genuinely time-consuming. Do I constantly blame myself and cuss myself for not making it? No, not at all. I am happy with my present frequency of Journalling. For me, to have a positive outlook is more important than to have a coercive one and to journal; ha, if you are not Journalling forever, then I believe you should force to start. Still, mostly it has to be organic, and it will be organic eventually because there can be no better person who loves you more than you.
* One of the things I want you guys to remember while Journalling is not to filter your thoughts, not to sugar coat your thoughts. If you have a darker side that you are not proud of, use journalling to acknowledge it instead of being in denial mode. If you don't acknowledge that you have issues you are not proud of, there's no way we can come over it. As I always say, acknowledging a problem is the first step in solving it. Use journalling for your advantage here be true it. You can come over it slowly. The mere fact that you are not happy with your darker side is an indication that you are on the right track
* However, saying this, I don't want you to focus on those darker aspects, write about healthy things, things that make you happy, a thing that keeps you excited about the future. When it comes to negative aspects, The main idea should be to write and move on. Let me give an example. Let's say you want to consume less Sugar to become fit but eat a lot of Sugar, and you are not very proud of this. This might sound small, but something as small as this can annoy people in real life. Now write it down in your journal and move on. What I mean by it is now don't just keep focusing on Sugar on every page of your Journal. Journal is just a place to acknowledge your issue. If you have a recognized problem in hand, take some time off of 15-20 mins from our routine, spend some alone time, and brainstorm ideas to solve. In this case, Don't cuss your brain or yourself, forgetting that urge. Have a more balanced approach, look at the situation without preconceived notions or bias like how an outsider would look at it. If you have Sugar daily, then that urge to consume Sugar is a natural reaction of our body. Your cussing or disappointment will not change the basic mechanics of the human body and human psychology. Understand the root cause, now the solution you can have is to reduce your daily sugar intake proportionally. Eventually, you will end up having no sugar. There's no deadline or a hard and fast rule for which you should trouble your body. Take your time in solving problems.
* Practice Let-go. Let me share one of my personal stories with you, I started playing badminton matches again, and I didn't want to focus on the score while playing the match. I just wanted to focus on the opponents and understanding their strategic weaknesses. I wanted to stay neutral to both winning and losing points, except I wanted to keep in mind the mistakes. I cannot completely get rid of my urge to focus on points while playing the game. After a certain point, I concluded that a part of me is going to focus on score anyway let us not make a big deal out, of it, let us move on, it will be something going on the background, instead of struggling with my mind to eliminate that thought I allowed it stay there but dint pay much attention to it because the idea is always to focus on the game and the opponent. I decently would recommend you guys to check out Headspace. If you are into introspection, Journalling you would be someone who cares about mindfulness. So do try out Headspace. Andy(meditation tutor in Headspace and the co-founder of Headspace) did help me a lot in the concept of let-go. It's something that I keep in mind all the time these days. Do try the basics course in Headspace, which is free.
* Journalling is for long term benefits, this is something that is going to stay with you for a very long period, after to 6-7months(though 6-months is not a long term period) when you go back to the initial pages of your Journal, It will allow you to relive those moments and see your growth and how you have evolved in front of your eyes. You will become more aware of yourself your thoughts, which will help you make smarter choices in life, making you highly comfortable with yourself. So always remember that you are here to play the long-term game. So stick around with it.
-By D.S.S.R.Anirudh
