If your only association with journaling is the, “Dear Diary,” days of grade school, it’s time for an upgrade.
Journaling is a powerful tool that helps you tap into deeper self-awareness and problem-solving skills while setting you up to meet your goals. These benefits can help you level up both personally and professionally.
Here we’ll discuss the benefits of journaling and eight different techniques you implement into your daily routine to optimize professional performance.
Why Journal? Self-Awareness & Personal Growth Benefits
While journaling takes on different forms and functions, the core feature is this: a daily writing habit where you reflect on what’s happening in your life.
For some, there is a heavy emphasis on processing emotions and feelings, whereas others might focus more on tasks, events, or responsibilities throughout the week. Some people journal through a reflective lens—looking back on the day or week—and others are more forward-thinking.
No matter how you decide to journal (more on that below), there are some key benefits of writing about your life on a daily or near-daily basis:
- Enhanced self-awareness: As you write, you are reflecting on daily experiences—how they went, how you felt about them, and how you reacted. This helps you identify patterns of behavior that are helpful to increasing self-awareness in the long term.
- Improved decision-making skills: As you reflect on past choices and outcomes, you can gain clarity and perspective that help you problem-solve better in the future. You might be able to see something from a new angle after taking the time to intentionally write about what happened. This helps you make better decisions in the future.
- Goal-setting and tracking progress: When you write your goals, dreams, visions, and plans down, you’re holding yourself accountable to them. It’s easier to track progress and see how you’re doing when you have a record of it, especially one that contains specific and measurable objectives. It’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be just a record of the outcomes, but also how you think and feel about the entire process.
When you just move through the days and weeks without taking time to reflect and process, you may miss out on insights and “aha!” moments that help propel you forward. Slowing down and putting things in writing reframes how you see things in order to move forward in a positive direction.
How to Journal: 8 Ideas You Can Easily Incorporate Into Your Daily Routine
Just like eating well, exercising, seeing a counselor, or starting a new hobby—consistency over time is necessary to see the changes you want.
Journaling is most effective when it’s done regularly, either on a daily or near-daily basis. To create this new habit, aim for consistency over perfection. You can try to: :
- Set a regular journaling time that fits into your established morning routine, or any other time that works for you.
- Show up every day, even if just for a minute or two to jot down a few sentences.
- Keep your journal with you at all times, whether physical or digital, so you can write when the mood strikes.
- Let someone else know about your new resolve to journal and ask for accountability.
Besides showing up consistently, there’s no real right or wrong way to journal. You may choose one style and stick with it, or switch things up regularly to incorporate new techniques.
Here are eight different journaling styles and exercises to try out.
1. Stream-of-Consciousness Writing
Ever feel like there is so much in your head you don’t know where to begin? Start by dumping it all out into your journal through stream-of-consciousness writing. This is when you sit down and just write. No agenda, no plan, no structure—just writing.
This helps you clear your mind and get everything you’re thinking about out into the open. Then, you can go deeper into specific areas or simply feel the relief of writing it down.
This concept was popularized by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, which lays out the concept of the morning pages, where you start each day by writing three pages of unfiltered thoughts and ideas. It’s meant to help boost creativity and clarity as you start your day.
2. Bullet Journaling
If you are looking for something a bit more structured, you may like bullet journaling. The simple premise of bullet journaling is to keep everything in one place: your daily tasks, monthly events, yearly goals, and thoughts and reflections on it all. Bullet journals help you plan and prepare for what’s to come while staying organized in your day-to-day life.
This method is all over social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest because of its colorful and creative aesthetic, so you can find lots of ideas and inspiration to get started.
3. Gratitude
Research tells us that cultivating a gratitude practice positively contributes to overall health and well-being. And one key way to do this is by journaling specifically through this lens.
You can keep a specific gratitude journal where you write about things you are thankful for, or simply include one or two lines in each day’s entry. By focusing on achievements, wins, blessings, good deeds, and other positive things, you are training your brain to look for and appreciate the good in life. This positive mindset will be invaluable to you throughout life.
4. SWOT Analysis
If you want to use journaling specifically to unlock your potential at work, consider doing a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for:
- Strengths: What are you good at and what’s going well right now?
- Weaknesses: What are areas of improvement you need to pursue?
- Opportunities: What are external areas for growth or advancement available to you?
- Threats: What are external pressures, demands, or changes that may have a negative impact?
Take some time to reflect on each category and write about it in your journal. This helps bring clarity to your current situation and where you can go to grow and improve.
5. Visualization and Manifestation
Our minds are so powerful and, some believe, have the ability to manifest desired outcomes and future successes. By clearly identifying goals and intentions—the things you want in life—you are inspired to take action to get there.
Further, when you are constantly tuning into a specific idea or goal, your eyes are opened to the possibilities around you. It’s kind of like this: when you’re planning on buying a new car and considering a few options, what happens when you’re out driving around? You see the car everywhere. This is because the car is on your mind, so your brain starts picking up on it.
It’s the same with visualization and manifestation. As you intentionally think about the things you want, your brain is then open to the possibilities to get there.
Tap into this by writing down your goals and dreams or creating a vision board that visually represents what you want to achieve.
6. Reflective Prompts
If you’re stuck on what to write, consider using reflective prompts. You can often purchase journals or guides that offer daily prompts, or you can look them up online. Here are a few to get you started:
- What did I learn today and how can I apply it?
- What challenges did I face, and how can I overcome them?
- What is something I did this week that gave me energy and something that drained my energy?
- Who did I speak to this week that challenged my ideas?
- What did I read, watch, or listen to that offered a new perspective?
7. Letter Journaling
Another effective way to process your day or week is by journaling in the form of letters. That is, writing to someone, whether it’s a colleague, friend, or family member. You are not going to actually send it to them, but it can be a helpful way to know how to direct your energy and feelings.
Say something frustrating happened with a colleague at work, but you just brushed it under the rug. You might journal about it and be surprised about the anger coming out. This signals that you may need to go back to them and talk things out to resolve the issue at hand. Or, maybe you write a positive letter and are reminded to reach out to a loved one or reconnect with someone.
8. Sentence-a-Day
If you’re looking for the ultimate minimalist approach or simply don’t have a lot of time, consider the sentence-a-day approach. It’s as easy as it sounds: write one sentence each day that summarizes what happened or highlights the most important part.
You can do this in your own journal or online platform or purchase a specific journal for it like this one.
Journaling is a powerful tool for self-discovery and awareness. And, because of that, it’s a powerful way to level up your career. You will gain greater clarity on who you are, what you want to achieve, and how you can get there by setting aside some time each day for reflection and planning.
If you’re in search of a positive professional workspace that helps you unlock your full potential, you’ll find it at The Post. Book a tour of The Post today.