How can journaling improve your wellbeing?
How does keeping a journal make you more productive?
What’s all this hype about journaling?
I know those questions might linger around in your mind right now. Let me try to help find the answer for you.
“Why should I trust you?” You might ask.
Rest assured, you can trust me because I practice journaling myself.
I started journaling consistently and ‘formally’ right at the beginning of this year.
It was an experiment to see how I can learn more about myself and manage my priorities in life systematically. And the result blows my mind.
The great thing is you can start journaling right now.
If you’re not yet convinced about journaling as a powerful habit, continue reading.
1. Deep down you’re a genius and journaling unlocks that
Do you remember that moment when someone asks you something that you know the answer to, but somehow you can’t recall the details of the information.
It happens to you, and it happens to everyone. Our memory has a limited capacity, just like the hard drive you have on your computer.
Don’t worry though, there’s good news.
Just like your hard drive can be upgraded to more storage, your mental inventory can be upgraded as well.
Even better, it’s not like some computer that can’t be upgraded after purchase, your mind can be upgraded anytime.
Simply — by journaling.
Look at it this way, your journal is where you pour out your thoughts, feelings, and memories. These are all rich information.
You may say I don’t need to write all those down in a journal, I have my big brain that already stores those stuff.
Well, I’m not denying the fact that our brain is a super machine that can handle a crazy amount of information. It’s because it is doing exactly that.
All those conscious and subconscious load forced your brain to store the majority of your past experience somewhere dark and hard to reach so that it can prioritize on your cognitive survival and what’s urgent at the moment.
To put it simply — it’s like the shortcut that most of us do with cleaning our room when we don’t have time, so we just shove everything under our bed to make the room feels inhabitable for your friends who are visiting in half an hour.
The drawback of this strategy?
It’s hard to find that specific item when you want to retrieve them under the bed, in this pile of stuff. It’s a mess.
You may ask, so how does journaling solve this?
Well, imagine being in your messy room. Instead of shoving everything under your bed, you pick up all the clothes and group them in one pile. Then you decide which ones to go into the laundry bag and which can be worn again as it’s still clean. You fold the clean clothes and store them in the wardrobe.
So next morning, when you want to get dressed up you just go to your wardrobe knowing that there’s a clean outfit ready to wear.
This act of putting things in the right place is what journaling does to your brain.
The next time a question about something you’ve experienced before pops up, you know where to find the answer.
It’s in your little yet lethal journal.
2. Enter your mind palace like Sherlock Holmes
Want to know a cool hack with that tissue in your head?
Your brain retains information more efficiently when it is accompanied by a binding act.
If this sounds foreign to you, let me explain.
Picture yourself doing revision for a biology exam which is in a week. You are revising on the chapter that covers how reproductive organs work for male and female ( that’s your favourite chapter I know).
So you want to be able to remember the role of the fallopian tube in the reproductive process. You want to keep this information accessible in your brain and make sure they won’t be swept down under the bed.
This is how you do it:
As you are absorbing the information for this particular chapter, you chew a strawberry gum while you’re doing it. Oh yes, I said that, chew a gum.
This is what you’re doing: You are binding the intellectual information with the sensory information of the strawberry flavoured gum.
Then, exam day comes. The question on the paper asks “Explain the role of the fallopian tube during the menstrual cycle?”
Being a badass, you silently slipped into your mouth the same strawberry-flavoured gum (not the exact same one, that’s disgusting). As you chew the gum, your mind starts to visualise the diagrams and notes of the reproductive organs that you’ve been revising a week ago.
Just like a cheetah, you sprint through the pages writing the answers on the answer sheet.
You manage to recall the information you needed by associating it with the sensory information you bind it with.
This binding method is what you do with journaling to your mental space.
As you gain experience and knowledge, you bind these moments with the sensory information that you get by physically writing them down with your hands brushing up and down on the texture of the paper you’re writing on.
Imagine the mind palace that Sherlock Holmes uses to retain information with crime investigations.
Your mind becomes this virtual library of information that are grouped systematically in a way that you can retrieve them quickly.
You close your eyes, recall the sensation of writing down that information in your journal. Magically the information appears in your mind.
Yes, it is magical.
And it works.
Sounds like something you want to try? Go ahead.
3. You can become cool, calm and collected like James Bond simply by journaling
We all know who James Bond is. This sharp and charismatic lad who always keeps a cool face despite all the stress and pressure on the life-threatening missions that he has to complete.
Everyone has a constant worry and anxiety in their head (although not as life-threatening like Bond’s). So how do you handle these stresses with a calm attitude as James Bond did?
First, ask yourself this important question:
Where are all these anxiety located?
Is it in my chest? Is it on my forehead?
By now you will notice that certain stresses affect a certain part of your physical body. You find out that when you’re frustrated about the overwhelming amount of work you have, there's a tension on your forehead pulsing at a higher rate than usual.
You are aware of your bodily reactions to your emotions.
Right now these stresses are still in your body.
The obvious thing to do is to get them out of your system, right?
But how exactly?
By channelling them through your hands on to the paper in your journal. Those anxious thoughts are transferred to the page in the form of black inks.
Now you see your stresses in front of you on this page you’ve just written on. They’re no longer inside of you.
Now you’re ready to put on that unfazed expression on your face even your colleague will be surprised to see you presenting your slide with brand new confidence.
4. Become a versatile polymath like Leonardo da Vinci by journaling
I’m sure we can all agree that multi-tasking is not as efficient as we used to think it was with the recent scientific research debunking this myth.
Designing a logo on your computer while having The Voice showing on the television will take a whole week to complete. Compare that with a solid undivided focus on just designing the logo, you’ll be done in 3 hours.
“It’s easier said than done”, your sceptic self whispers.
No matter how much we try to narrow our tasks into a single one, there’s always another one popping up. Having to handle multiple projects at the same time is the condition of the modern human.
You have your 9 to 5 job to put a plate on the table, a startup business to maintain, and a big family to take care of.
How can you propose anything other than multi-tasking to live this hectic life?
Well, it all comes down to intentional prioritisation by managing your tasks as they pop up.
How does this work? Here’s a situation I think you can relate to:
You’re doing your financial analysis in the office, then suddenly a text message notification pops up coming from your wife reminding you to grab some grocery on the way back home.
This is what you shouldn’t do:
Get on your phone and right away reply to your wife. This will break your momentum with the focus you’ve built with the task at hand.
This is a smarter approach to maintain your focus:
You can’t just ignore the notification because it will stay around in your head, constantly nudging you to be curious about the message.
So when you see the notification, then you grab your journal.
You write in your journal “Reply to my wife after this work session is done”.
Then you continue doing your work and only attend to other commitment after the work is done.
Attention is preserved.
I mean you can always turn off your phone before you start doing your work, right?
Well, you know what can’t be turned off during your focus session?
Your own easily-distracted mind. So use this postponing method with your journal when there’s an idea or a new task pops up in your head just like the notification.
What happened there was that you’re turning the mental distraction into a tangible written form that you can stow away in your notebook.
This is the alternative to multi-tasking.
It is single-tasking multiple projects.
5. Journaling unleash your inner Picasso by expressing your creativity
Do you know that deep inside of you there’s a creative artist meditating like a hermit?
They’re meditating because that’s the best they can do. You rarely reach out to them.
Imagine — you’re experiencing a creative block. Then, you dive deep into your core to find this artist and have a conversation with them about creativity.
“ Hey, I’m pretty stuck now, do you have any design idea for this bedroom?”
“ Oh sure, I have seen a lot of bedrooms, and a lot of the design ideas are stored here in the subconscious warehouse. Wanna have a look?”
That’s the kind of dialogue you will have with your creative muse when you journal your creative process. You will find an unexpected solution for whatever creative project that you undertake.
Let’s be clear about certain nuances with personal and creative journaling.
Personal journaling is a form of emotional reflection at a certain point of time—introspective in nature.
While creative journaling is focused on being aware of your state and senses, belief and the surrounding. This is expressed with a more flexible arsenal of media and form.
You’re not limited to pen and paper writing essay about your life, you can use your colourful sharpie and watercolour drawing mind maps and sketches.
Andy Shackcloth summarised these slight differences quite well:
Personal journaling is a discipline that allows you to experience the whole you.
Journaling for Creativity is a state of mind that allows you to become the whole you.
What are you waiting for? Grab your pen and start drawing whatever image you have in your mind. Inspire yourself with some breakthrough ideas for yourself and the world.
6. Heal your body like a monk through reflective journaling
Let me ask you a quick question. When you’re going through a difficult time in your life, where do you go to?
Picture this — you have a long wonderful relationship with your partner, then things go wrong — you broke up. Your heart is in pieces. You wonder how do I gather the strength to reassemble myself as a whole person again.
Trust me when you’re down, wallowing in sadness is really tempting. It’s a masochist tendency that most of us have with negativity.
Usually, this is what you do — you post a snippet of your favourite sad song on Instagram and tweet some pessimistic view on the meaninglessness of love and life.
You’d receive some supportive comments from your friends, yea that’s very kind of them.
But let’s be frank here, we all know they don’t really understand the gravity of your suffering.
Their words intended for consolation turn into annoyances to you because you find it insincere and were communicated just as a courtesy.
Now, will those social media posts heal you or exacerbate your suffering?
Okay, what’s the alternative to expressing yourself with people online then?
Ask yourself this: “Out of anyone in this world who would understand me the most?”
My friends? No. My parents? No.
The answer is obvious yet often reside in your psyche’s blind spot.
It’s you, yourself.
Yes, I’m suggesting to you that you should start the healing process by expressing your downfall to yourself — by journaling.
Begin with writing whatever crippling sensation you’re feeling in the moment.
Just by writing them down, you will see them in front of you. Most of the time the problems reside in our head and we don’ have any way to look at them directly.
This is the first step in resolving any problem — look at the problem first.
Once you’re aware of those feelings, reflect on them.
Ask important questions like:
“How long should I continue feeling this way?”
“Is there a way for me to water down this feeling?”
Personally, I would suggest handling negative emotions with gratitude. You can never go wrong with gratitude because you can’t be angry and be grateful at the same time.
They’re not in the same wavelength.
Write down 3 things that you are grateful for in this moment. It can be as simple as “the fresh air” or “I’m still breathing”.
Once you tune in to gratitude’s station, you won’t be listening to depressive, furious and anxious thoughts.
7. Find yourself with journaling like how your mom always find your lost socks
I bet you can relate to this. You lost the other half of your favourite pair of socks. You search every part of the house for hours and you still can’t find them.
Then, you ask your mom “have you seen my socks, mom?”
Then she’ll be like “oh, have you looked under the sofa in the living room?”
You look under the sofa, and it’s there.
Your mom is a wizard, not you Harry.
Okay, why am I telling you this story?
Well, it is similar to the feeling that we experienced often out of the blue — feeling lost. As if we don’t know who we are in a certain situation. You know what I mean right?
Does existential crisis ring a bell?
You know going to a party trying to fit in with people there, faking a smile and appear as if you’re enjoying it. Then, you find yourself in the bathroom as a refuge from this confusing environment. You look at yourself in the mirror — who am I?
Okay, let me give you another situation that you can relate to.
You’re hanging out with a circle of friends. One of your friends asks you, “what’s your plan after graduation?”
You responded, “don’t ask people that kind of question”. You reacted like that because it pushed an anxiety button about who you want to become in the future.
You don’t have a damn clue about what you want and that’s disturbing. You don’t even know who you are right now, let alone the future.
Now, what do we do? Yes, you guessed it, start journaling.
Write down all the uncertainties that cloud your mind at the moment. Write as they come, let it flow like a waterfall.
Then stop that waterfall, now you have a lagoon of your worries and anxiety. Jump in there and swim through the words you’ve written. You’ll find some weird creatures living in there the deeper you dive in.
This is scary, you might think.
Well, nothing great has ever been achieved without going through some challenges — that challenge right now is facing your own insecurities.
Some might not be able to see through their insecurities right away. Let me give you a tip on how to identify them:
Observe any recurring mannerism that you do when you don’t feel comfortable. Then ask yourself why do I act this way?
Let me give you an example of mine:
I noticed that when I’m having a conversation with someone, I would rub my neck while I’m talking. This is the recurring mannerism that I do when I’m not certain with what I’m saying — I realised this as I am writing this now.
Isn’t it incredible how you can get to know yourself just by writing expressively?
Finding yourself is key when you want to be the best version of yourself.
I’m going to leave you with this question:
How can you improve yourself when you don’t even know what to improve?
Think about that.
Conclusion
I’m sure by now you’re already convinced how powerful journaling can transform the way you look at yourself and the world. Let’s pulverise the stigma around journaling that it’s for wimps and nerds. I mean who came up with that stigma anyway? Do you know who actually journal? Leonardo da Vinci, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Charles Darwin,Mark Twain, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven — guys I can continue all day long. These are all great visionaries of the world, and they all adopt the habit of journaling. You would agree with me that we learn effectively through imitation. Let’s imitate what these amazing people did by implementing the habit they do. Be amazing, start journaling. P.S. I’m sure you have an opinion about journaling. Does this article made you change your perspective on journaling? Leave them in the comment below.