Journaling
The Benefits of and Tips for Keeping a Diary
Introduction
What do Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Anne Frank, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Marcus Aurelius, Winston Churchill, and Ernest Hemingway all have in common?
Apart from the fact that they are no longer alive, they all kept a diary, also known as 'journaling'. Over the years, it has been proven that there are great benefits to jotting down your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and doubts. The fact that such great thinkers and creative minds consciously chose to do this might be a good reason for you to consider regularly writing about your daily activities, frustrations, victories, fears, wishes, dreams, goals, etc.
Writing can be incredibly valuable. It can serve as a good outlet; a way to organize your thoughts; develop your language skills; practice gratitude, and consciously reflect on the beautiful and less beautiful aspects of life. This can eventually help you to get to know yourself better, regulate your emotions and thoughts, and deal better with the constantly changing circumstances of existence.
In this article, I want to:
- Explain the benefits of keeping a diary,
- Explain why it can have a positive effect, and
- Provide tips and tricks on how to best get started and stick with it.
The Power of Listening
One of the most essential parts of a conversation with a psychologist is that there is unconditional and attentive listening. There is complete focus in the here and now with the intention of understanding what is being said on another level. The goal is to better place things, create overview and clarity, see causal relationships, or suggest another perspective on the situation. Sometimes you can go even deeper and try to figure out what is beneath what you are experiencing in the here and now and where it comes from.
In a good session with a psychologist, there is a form of attention without any judgment, purely from genuine interest, empathy, and the desire to see what is really happening.
But this also applies to more than just therapy. When a friend takes the time to listen to you without judgment, without immediately wanting to solve everything, without getting upset themselves or starting to talk about their own problems, that also has a positive effect.
Why Does Expression Work?
Expressing thoughts and feelings is an essential part of human well-being. The fact that expressing thoughts and feelings works has a number of reasons. ...
How to Start Writing?
Tips and Tricks to Help You Start Writing:
- Ask yourself questions.
- Such as: what's on my mind a lot? What am I struggling with? What am I doing well right now? What am I proud of? ...
- Start with ugly writing.
- It's not a handwriting competition. ...
- Integrate it into your routine.
- Do it at a fixed time of the day ...
- Keep it short at first.
- 5 minutes can work wonders. ...
- Create a few standard phrases to start with.
- For example, use the following sample phrases: ...
- Set goals in your diary (challenges).
- Give yourself challenges, goals to work on, things you want to achieve or have always wanted to do. ...
- Practice gratitude.
- A big trend is positive thinking. ...
- Buy a beautiful notebook with a matching pen or open a beautiful document.
- Even with a beautiful title or layout, it doesn't matter: as long as it works for you to take a moment to think about it. ...
- Read back.
- If you're sitting on the train or have an unguarded moment that you normally spend on your phone, read back what you've written. ...
- Make short notes on your phone throughout the day.
- Every time something comes to mind that you think might be important to do something with, reflect on, this happened, this is how I feel now, I keep thinking about this: write it down briefly as a note to come back to later. ...
- Keep track of dates.
- Always write down the date when you write something down. ...
- Practice makes perfect.
- It takes some time to learn. ...
I hope you found this helpful. Life is a big learning process, you'll never be there but always want to get there. So give yourself room to grow by failing. If you need some support or just want to talk, spar, exchange thoughts?
Come by my own practice in Rijswijk (ZH). The first consultation is always free, after all, you never know if it clicks.