Journaling is known to have a ton of awesome benefits. There have been multiple studies conducted to see how the practice helps with personal growth. They revealed that when practiced daily, journaling can have an extraordinary positive impact on our wellbeing. Let’s look at some of the ways daily journaling can benefit personal growth.
Reach More Goals
You can use your journal to set and reach your goals. To better yourself, you need to know exactly what it is that you need to change. Journaling lets you not only identify what it is that needs to change, but also set goals to make that change happen.
When setting goals, make sure they are small and achievable. For example, if you want to become more confident, your first goal might be to smile at a stranger, or practice positive affirmations.
Try and break down your goals as much as possible. As you reach the smaller goals, it motivates you to carry on until you eventually reach the end goal.
Become More Productive
Did you know that regular journaling can also make you more productive? A study carried out by the Harvard Business School, revealed those who journal before bed experience a 25% increase in productivity than those who don’t journal.
When you journal, it lets you clearly see what you need to do or change in your life. It keeps your goals fresh in your mind and ramps up your motivation. You can also improve its effectiveness at boosting productivity by using it to write To-Do lists. As you tick off the things on your list, it motivates you to tick off the other tasks. If you want to be more productive, journaling might be the tool you need.
Easily See Progress
Journaling makes it easy to see your progress. Whatever it is that you are looking to change, when you keep a journal, you can track your progress. You will be able to clearly see when you started, and how your life changes as you continue to journal.
Tracking your progress helps to keep you motivated. Whether you are trying to lose weight, become more confident, or learn something new, keeping a journal can help you to stay on track.
Thought Release or Brain Dump
Sometimes, all you need is to get the negative thoughts out of your head. Writing down your thoughts into a journal helps to get them out of the mind. When you have them written down, it also helps you to better analyze them. Often our negative thoughts sound much worse in our head than they do when they are written down.
You will find it hard to better yourself and become more productive if your head is full of racing or negative thoughts.
Work Through Problems
We all go through problems at some time in our lives. However, journaling is a great tool that can help you work through them.
When you write down your problems, you have an opportunity to see them clearly. You can then analyze all the things that you could do to overcome the problem. If a friend came to you with the same issues, what would you tell them? Looking at it from a different perspective can help you to identify solutions you may not have otherwise thought of.
A journal can help you to work through your problems in a healthy way. Addressing and figuring out solutions to your problems will greatly boost your personal growth.
Expand Self-Awareness
If you want to become a better version of yourself, you are going to need to be self-aware. With self-awareness, it allows us to better understand our thoughts and actions.
Keeping a journal can help us to develop a much stronger sense of self-awareness. You will have a written record of your thoughts and feelings, allowing you to analyze patterns of behavior.
By becoming more self-aware, it enables you to change your habits. This is key to personal growth.
Improve Focus
As you write in your journal daily, it will start to improve your focus. You will get a clear idea of the things you need to do to better yourself. Having your goals right there infront of you helps you to constantly focus on what it is that needs to be done.
You will be more focused in all areas of your life when you journal daily. Give it a go and see just how much more focused and determined you will be to change your life.
Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Finally, another benefit of writing daily in a journal, is that it can help to reduce stress and anxiety. When you have too much stress in your life, it is going to cause issues with sleep, your relationships, and your mental health. It can also have many health implications too.
Writing down your negative thoughts and feelings helps to take away their power. You will feel a lot more relaxed and in turn your anxiety levels will drop. So, if you experience a lot of stress and anxiety in your life, journaling could have a dramatic positive impact.
These are only a small selection of the benefits that journaling as a daily practice can deliver. It is such a simple practice, yet many people are still unaware of its excellent benefits.
Now that you have a good idea of the benefits you can expect to experience, the question is how do you get started? There are many tips you can utilize to make journaling more effective. Let’s move on to some of the best tips for journaling better.