It’s in our DNA to write, process, and document our journey through life.
Journaling is older than the written word. Men and women have been tracking the noteworthy events of their lives since cavemen were drawing crude pictograms on walls.
Some of this country’s most beloved treasures are the journals and accounts written by the founding fathers and mothers of America.
Whether you are planning out a new business, processing your thoughts in a safe place, or creating a documentary record of your journey through life, journaling is an effective way to sort through life’s challenges and questions and create new outcomes.
There are three big benefits to keeping a journal:
1. Exploration of possibilities – what might be
Part of your personal, professional, and spiritual journey through life includes exploring the possibilities. Journaling creates a safe space to ponder any and every idea that comes to mind – whether you intend to act on those ideas right away, or keep them close for the future.
Sometimes one of the best ways to manage the busyness and overwhelm of life is to empty your head of the thoughts, ideas, and information taking up space in your mind.
Writing down the information frees you up to let it go. Your brain is no longer required to manage all of the information, and you’ll find your emotional state benefits from the lighter load as well.
Journaling your thoughts, challenges, inspiration, and dreams flexes and strengthens your imagination and fires neurons that expand on the ideas you’ve written.
You’ve created space for ideas to be cataloged, and you can go back and add details to the overall ideas or let them go if they no longer suit you.
The simple act of asking yourself “what if” invites the possibilities to come. Writing down the ideas that come to mind makes room for you to explore what it would take to make them a reality.
2. Expressing your processes and experiences of life – what you’ve lived through
Express yourself – Just as art, music, and dance are forms of expression, journaling is a fundamental way that people express themselves. Whether you are using Bible journaling, bullet journaling, or writing longhand in a leather-bound book filled with empty pages, you can express your spiritual, intellectual, and authentic self in a very profound way.
No two journals are alike – just as no two people are alike – and there is great power in having an outlet to share what’s on the forefront of your mind, occupying your heart, or being discerned in your spirit.
Expressing yourself gives you an outlet to help you manage the emotions of difficult periods or circumstances in your life. The activity of writing in a journal can also recharge your batteries and provide needed self-care.
Journaling forms a pathway to a passion – writing about, drawing, or capturing your biggest ideas will help them take shape because they have your full attention.
3. Gaining personal historical perspective – what you’ve learned and seen
Remember what has happened – Life is fleeting. What you are experiencing today is going to be a memory in a very short amount of time.
What you feel about life, happiness, sadness, elation, or confusion won’t always be the case. You won’t always be pregnant. You won’t always be in the beginning stages of starting your business or considering a shift in your personal spiritual path.
Journaling creates a timeline where you can live in the moment and reflect back on the past as you plan for the future.
Nothing is better than going back and revisiting who you were back then and recognizing how far you’ve come. You’ll gain a new appreciation of your efforts and your growth by seeing that things really did work out for the best.
Being able to see how you worked through issues and worked through them can be extremely beneficial. One day your family may read your journal and have a new and profound understanding of who you were and what you were managing at various times in life.
Journaling has a myriad of benefits that truly come alive when you move your thoughts and ideas out of your head, into concrete form in a journal. There are undeniable advantages to exploring the possibilities, expressing yourself, and documenting your historical perspective on life.
