The Best Way to Practice Journaling
You’re a parent working 40+ hours a week and time never seems to be on your side.
Or, you’re a successful entrepreneur, and carving quiet time for yourself is a rare commodity.
Either way, prioritizing time for yourself is the key to showing up as your best in the world. Building a writing habit, more specifically, journaling habitually is the hidden key to success you’ve been missing!
Whether you are just writing on the side or you consider yourself a professional, the best way to get better at anything is to practice consistently, so why would writing be any different?
Why Journaling?
Journaling helps you think clearly and make better decisions but it’s also a great way to track new habits and personal development goals.
There are several ways you can build a writing habit without doing a free-write, stream-of-consciousness brain dump.
Using prompts is a great way to get started when you are drawing a blank on what to write about. Morning pages are also a great tool to make journaling a routine habit.
Use Journal Prompts
If you have been struggling with getting started on what to write, try the following prompts whenever you draw a blank.
It takes the right prompt to bring us to the right depths in our writing, which is the goal of the following prompts.
Prompt 1: What is one goal you have right now and what is your plan to achieve it?
Prompt 2: Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write statements of gratitude until the timer goes off.
Prompt 3: What is one fear you have right now? What would happen if your fear came to pass?
If the stream of consciousness or prompted journaling does not suit you, bullet journaling is a great way to build a journaling habit through habit tracking. For more information on bullet journaling, click here.
Start Morning Pages
Scheduling time to write does not remove the resistance of actually putting pen to paper. So hack the habit. Morning pages, popularized by Julia Cameron and introduced in this video, are meant to be a habitual writing practice.
If you are unfamiliar, morning pages are three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing done every morning. To build the habit of writing, start by clearing your mental clutter with morning pages.
You will find that since you are in the mode of writing, it is easier to switch from paper to laptop and continue in flow.
Start a Blog
Starting a blog is NOT recommended for those just looking to get started.
However, if you are the type to dive off the deep end, then starting a blog will give you the added pressure to get started.
If you have already built a habitual writing practice, take your writing up a notch and start a blog.
Journaling every day is enough to build the habit of sitting down to write, but what about refining the skill? A blog will allow you the space to publish content at low stakes.
What better way to test your writing skills than to engage the interest of others?
Final Thoughts
Writing is easy. Communicating the thought or idea accurately is the hard part and to get better you must practice articulating your thoughts.
Journaling is a great way to build the habit of accurately communicating what’s most important to your inner being. If you want to practice writing, start by doing it every day and the easiest way to build a habit is to incorporate it into your routine.
A habit like journaling is going to require you to make better choices thus fueling your personal development. If you only have time to journal for 30 minutes in the mornings, plan your week ahead or write content for a personal blog. Putting time into practice writing every day is the most important part of building the habit.
