4 Things I’ve Learnt From 1 Year Of Journaling

I was full of resistance towards journalling for years. It was one of those things that I logically knew could be incredibly good for me, but emotionally didn’t feel ready for.

My husband had been doing it for a long time and he would suggest I try it, but I just couldn’t. Or not that I couldn’t, but wouldn’t. I didn’t want to sit down with myself and be quiet and reflect. That felt far too scary… Until I reached quite a low point with my health and well being and finally felt that if I was already in a bad place, writing about it surely couldn’t make it worse.

To make it easy on myself I chose to build the habit around drinking coffee in the morning because that’s something I was already doing daily. I also took the pressure off by saying, it didn’t matter if I wrote a whole page or just one sentence, it’s the consistency of it that counts. The focus was on forming the habit, not on trying to be perfect at journalling. I had no plans to write a novel, just a goal of trying out a new tool to improve myself.

I hate writing in black ink (thanks synaesthesia), so understanding my own unique neurodivergence, I increased my odds at keeping this up with bright colourful pens. I also highly recommend erasable pens if you’re like me, and don’t love seeing mistakes on a page. If I cross something out it makes me want to throw out the whole notepad. Erasable pens were a game changer. My favourite to use are the Pilot Frixion Erasable Pens but there are loads of different options online!

I also opted for A4 notepads because there’s something about the bigger size of pages that felt like it created more space for me. It really doesn’t matter what you write in, but again, it was the tiny details that I knew would help keep me consistent or not.

So, with the odds beginning to stack in my favour for being able to start journalling and keep it up, I started on my journey of self discovery, and these are some of the key things I learnt.

1. Morning Routines Are A Winner

I am not a morning person. I never have been. I hate alarm clocks with a passion, and will always try and wake up naturally if I can. This was confirmed even more through 2023, where I discovered I’d prefer to work an evening gig and lie in, rather than getting up at 5am for a day gig.

I used to feel like if I wasn’t getting up at 5 or 6 am I wasn’t worthy of having a morning routine. That I had to deprive myself of sleep in exchange for this precious and wondrous morning routine that people talked about. I felt like a failure for not being a morning person, and as a result I used to just get up and get straight on my computer for work. I didn’t feel like I had time for anything else except to get on with things. But that did not set me up for the day in any way, so I was curious to see what would happen by challenging all of these beliefs and implementing journalling.

I’ve learnt that routine doesn’t have to be the same thing at the same time every day, just the same thing. Regardless of when I wake up I make sure I have time to start my morning with a glass of water followed by journalling with my coffee. It’s not much, but it’s made such a difference to keep the first 15-30 minutes aside for myself. It helps me to avoid screens first thing, and it gives me space to feel however I’m feeling because I have an outlet for processing those feelings that doesn’t impact those around me.

You don’t need to journal in the mornings if that’s just not a good time for you, any time of day is great as long as it’s daily - but I went for mornings because I could pair it with a habit I was already doing and that worked for me. In turn I discovered having a short morning routine has massively benefited me.

2. You Have Control Over Your Feelings

I didn’t become truly aware of how bad a mood I could wake up in until I started journalling. Sometimes a bad dream can trigger that for me, or if there are a lot of challenges going on in real life. So I’d wake up, I wouldn’t know I was feeling bad, and then I’d start reacting to things. I’d be short with my husband or I’d feel cross or upset over work, or I’d experience more stress than normal over something seemingly small. And that would set me up for the rest of the day, on a path of negative emotions and being reactive to every tiny thing.

If I can catch that this is how I’m feeling first thing, before any major interactions or experiences, I can immediately address it. I can recognise I don’t feel great, and write about it to try and unravel what’s going on. Normally once I’ve written it down it immediately reduces the intensity of the bad feeling, and then I can work through it, and often just resolve it there and then. I’ll realise it’s because I’ve taken on too many things at once, and figure out a plan to make that less overwhelming. Or it could be as simple as shifting my mindset around some tasks that I have to do, and make an active choice to experience my day and my life differently.

That space to just take a step back and reassess what’s going on has been absolutely priceless. It’s not something I’ve every really had the capacity to do before, and I’m truly grateful to have developed this tool through journaling.

3. Make Time For You

I don’t think I truly appreciated how valuable setting quiet time aside for myself on a regular basis is. I thought that because I train regularly and because I see my therapist once a week that I was already giving myself time for me. But it’s totally different when it’s you and yourself, and you’re meeting each other every day, 365 days out of the year.

That quiet time that is just for me feels like one of the most authentic and unforced forms of self care that I’ve implemented into my life. It’s not dependant on anyone else, doesn’t require me giving or receiving attention from someone else, there’s no noise or stimulation, it’s not social, it’s not physically demanding, it’s also not mentally demanding unless I choose to make it that way. Some days it’s just practising gratitude, other days it’s processing something that’s happened, or reflecting on a dream I had, or just saying hello to the notepad. Whatever the outcome, I enjoy that one on one time with myself, and it’s helped me become more comfortable with who I am.

4. Meet Yourself Where You Are At

You don’t need to be in any particular frame of mind to start journalling. I often imagined that those who journaled had their lives together and focused and everything figured out - and I think many people who journal are like that. But there are also many who do it and are really going through it. If I had waited until “things were good” I’d have missed out on utilising it to transform how I felt about myself, my life, and the world around me.

I journaled for 13 months in the same notepad. And this notepad is full of a lot of pain. But if I hadn’t got it down on paper and expressed those thoughts, I believe I’d still be carrying that around with me now. It really did start to feel like once I wrote something negative down, it reduced the intensity and took the power out of of it. Again, using to diffuse difficult feelings has been one of the most worthwhile parts of this practise.

Conclusion:

I started journalling in the hopes it might help me deal with challenges I was experiencing. I can confidently say I achieved this, but it really did take time. It was not a quick fix. It took around 9 months before I started to feel like I really wanted to write first thing in the morning. And it took a full year before I could see how much things were shifting for me internally. If I had tried to write this post after 6 months, I wouldn’t be sharing these insights. It was still very surface level at that point.

It took a full year to see real change in myself. I’m incredibly proud of sticking with something that I initially didn’t want to do long enough to see that change. This is why I’ve mentioned how I set myself up for success with forming this new habit, because I wasn’t optimistic I’d stick with it at the start.

I would recommend journalling to everyone. Find a way for it to slot into your daily routine with as much ease and as little effort as possible, try and show up every day, and let me know how you’re getting on in a years time. The changes will be worth it, I truly believe that!