I think I've finally realized that a best friend isn't a person, my best friend is my journal. I started journaling at the end of the year 2021. Back then, I didn't know that journaling or writing down my thoughts would turn out to be something so magical.
Or how important it is to do this, but this has literally shaped and transformed my life, and these books have an entry for every single day about how I was feeling that day, what happened that day. What I did, etc. , etc.
, etc. , and it is such a beautiful thing Even if I turn 50 years old and want to see what I was like at 30, what things I was going through. I have every account of it, but not only that, these books are my literal best friends.
Inside these books, I write a lot of things that I know I can never tell anyone else. Some form of judgment is bound to come at some point in life. Now, I'm not going to tell you about any five ways to journal, nor am I going to tell you to make a gratitude journal or take that prompts journal where they write the questions for you and give you a small space to answer in two lines.
So, what do I think? About this, what is happening in my life, there are 2-2 lines given for it, and everyone has written questions firstly I absolutely don't like those books that already have prompts written inside, that already have questions written inside, which I have to fill in. I mean, if I consider myself to be an adult, okay, and I am making adult decisions in life, and I need to grow and improve in life, even then if I need someone else's help.
To see and to think, what is happening in my own mind rather than using my head to bring out questions only then will there be mental exercise, right? If you are getting spoon-fed questions, then you are answering according to their questions. But the whole point of journaling in itself is to bring out what is in your head.
You have to bring out what is going on inside your mind, what is happening in your life, and no one else knows what questions they will ask or write that will reveal the actual things happening inside you. You can write freely. For me, For me, journaling is freedom.
For me, journaling is taking accountability. For me, journaling is a place where I can express myself. It's a place where I know I can write my deepest thoughts.
I know that this book won't judge me for anything I write, and whatever accountability I take, whether I made a mistake or something happened, I know that this book will only help me rectify my mistakes, not judge me. I don't really share a lot of things with a lot of people directly because sooner or later, somewhere in life, a judgment comes, and that thing will stay in their mind. No matter how much you move forward in your life, no matter how many changes you make in your life, if you have told someone any of your weaknesses or any mistake, whatever you have told, it will stay in their mind.
No matter how much you move forward, they will stay there. What I feel about journaling is that it's a place where you can just express yourself and let everything out. Keeping so much load and stress in your mind, I'm just going to tell you how I do journaling, what my method is.
You need to find your own method, okay? I personally believe that the simpler and easier you can make something, the more sustainable it is, and that's what you can do in life or in the long term. If you add fifteen layers to it, like I need to do this and that at this time to journal, or if my book isn't pink, or my pens aren't glittery, then I won't journal.
The first person who wants to journal will just pick up a simple book and start writing. From my last year and a half, I think as you can tell, they are not fancy. So when I started journaling, I started because journaling seemed to be the thing everyone was talking about.
I also thought it would be nice. I wasn't very consistent with journaling. Some days I would do it, some days I would forget, write for two days, not write for two days.
There was no system, no setting, and I was just doing it. At night, when I was tired, my mind wasn't working well enough to ask myself what's going on. But for many people, nighttime is a good time to journal.
For me, I realized that daytime works better. When I wake up, I'm fresh and have a new perspective on the previous day. When I'm emotional, my journal is a day behind.
Basically, what I journaled this morning was about yesterday. Now, this isn't for everybody. You should do what fits you.
I realized that it fits me better to write about the previous day the next day. It gives me time. So think about it when you sleep over your problem.
When you wake up in the morning, the problem doesn't seem as big. It becomes a bit smaller, and you start thinking more logically. I like that point because when I write about my problems, even the good and bad situations, I still write from a very optimistic point of view, from a very solution-oriented point of view.
So it automatically translates into gratitude because by the end, I start by saying, okay, so this happened and that happened, and by the end. Because I start with optimism, by the end, it turns into gratitude. Thank you, God, you know this, thank you, God, for this little problem because it showed me where I stand and how I can find a solution.
Thank you, God, for everything. Thank you, God, for this because, in the end, it turns into optimism. If you don't have a lot of gratitude, then its alternative is to write your problems see how many solutions you can find out of it and just in the end be like, I'm so happy that I could find some solution.
That's also a way of gratitude. It's not that my mindset is always positive, sometimes I'm very negative. Somedays it feels like there's no solution, so just write, just write as much as you can, there's no limit in your journal, there's no limit, no end, no start.
However you want to start, whatever you want to write, however you want to express, you want to draw, you want to make diagrams, you want to write poems, you want to paint, you want to stick things, whatever you want to do, man, the diary is that best friend where you can just go all out, it's your safe space. You have to build that connection, that bond with the book, that book is ultimately your reflection, so as much as you don't lie to yourself. The more you speak, the clearer you keep yourself, the more you want to see yourself real, if you are truly serious.
About self-improvement, about breaking patterns, if you lie to your journal, you're lying to yourself, who are you lying to? Then how will you even go on a self-improvement journey? Here, what changes will you make, you won't even know what to do, why do you keep lying to yourself?
If you can be brutally honest with your journal about yourself. Brutally honest without judgment, then you'll come to actual solutions. Then you'll see how deep you're in, then you'll realize.
This is what I'm supposed to do, what I'm not supposed to. Try to find a solution, finding a solution is okay. Come back to you tomorrow, diary will see again.
If you're worried that someone might read your diary, or someone might read your private stuff, then don't make it too flashy. Just take a simple notebook that you know no one will open, and keep it in your bag where you know no one will open it. Write in it with a simple pen, write at the office, write at school, write at college, write in a place where you know this is my time.
Here, I can write. If you feel you can't write at home, that's okay. You create, you have to have the will, every problem has a solution, you just need the will.
So, this is how I journal. Sometimes my books have drawings, caricature types, and even graphs. Its funny because I create graphs about myself in my book.
In my books, I make these little drawing I really like it. because that's also a way of expressing, sometimes I can't put it into words, I don't understand in words, how to express it so I use drawing keep it simple that you can sustain it. Go back and read your diary entries.
Then you will understand how much fun it is to read old things, because on that date I actually know how I felt that day and time what I was feeling, what problem I had, its all logged in get yourself a basic book and a pen or any 2 pages empty at the back of the book, start from there don't wait for a new book whatever's going on in your mind in this moment not the future or past, how it feels right now in this moment - just write it keep writing. Who said you can write 2 pages. 3 pages.
I have even written 10-10 pages at a time. It feels like smoke is coming out of my pen and book from writing I write that fast! But yeah and then there are days where I write 2 lines.
There is nothing to be grateful for, just grateful for today. That's my diary that's my. .
. Who said my diary has to fill even half a page. So if you are serious about self-improvement this year.
Because that's where everything starts. That's where grounding comes in life. Dude, I'm in a very pro-grounding zone.
Where I feel a sort of stability and a sort of control sense of feeling. Yeah bro, it's okay if problems come, I know a framework, I know a way to control myself in it, to gather myself rather than being anxious, going into such an emotional state, getting mentally overloaded. It's better that a problem comes and I know that I will write it in my book.
My step-by-step guide to solving whatever problem and to see it as. Problem, I involve myself so emotionally in it that it's not a problem, it becomes something very big. This becomes larger than I can handle it only then that sense of stability, that feeling of security comes that no matter what happens, I will find my center.
I will shake. Obviously, when you're writing sometimes you will have tears in your eyes, sometimes your hands will be trembling, sometimes you'll be scared, sometimes you'll be happy, but in all of that. The book is your space where you'll find answers, that becomes your walking stick, I don't need to quickly call someone, I don't need to rely on calling so many people and telling them, asking them for something or taking help from them.
Then I'll feel good, see all of that is good, no one said you shouldn't do all this, it's a good thing, you should have friends, you should know how to express. And that's very important but such dependency that you need someone's help in every problem, you're waiting for someone's support in every little thing. It will become a burden on those people and slowly you'll realize that they're stepping back, not picking up the phone, they might think that you talk about the same thing every time, whatever it is, we all go through it.
Then you'll realize that there are some things I have to handle myself. I have to do it on a day-to-day basis, I can't express everything like this, in every case going up and saying I need help, I need help because they are also dealing with something in their life. So you need your own walking stick, you'll have to become your own support and that walking stick in this case is journaling, express there, write your solutions there and have the courage to implement those solutions, because when you implement, your confidence will grow.
And then you'll realize why journaling is important and you'll never leave journaling. That's the whole thing, let me know in the comments if this year will be the year when you start journaling.
