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Ditch the Brain Fog: the Power of Journaling

Personal Growth

June 23, 2024

Journalling is one of the least expensive hobbies to maintain but among the most expressive ones. Oftentimes, when there’s nobody to talk to or converse with, a journal could be the friend you need. Journals provide a way for people to express their truest selves even when they’re neck-deep in the face of obstacles.

Simply put, journaling is the act of writing your thoughts down- from the simplest smile a stranger on the bus gave you, to the extreme anxiety you feel at the thought of giving a speech the next day. Journaling is a medium by which your ideas can come to fruition and a catalyst for unlocking your best and most comfortable self. Journals are a medium for you to shine your brightest through the pages.

Read on for more inspiration to get you into journaling!

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The 3 C’s: Confidence

The beauty of journaling lies in its unique individuality. Different types of people have different types of journals. Journal types can range from a daily habit tracker to a commonplace notebook, from a guided manifestation journal to a journal that helps you keep track of your dreams.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

One of the many forms that a journal comes in is a daily habit tracker. By maintaining an everyday log of your days including your morning and night routines, it becomes more effective for people to understand themselves. Writing down the habits you are currently working on implementing and want to inculcate in the future can help with developing yourself as a person.

Logging your daily habits also allows you to improve your time management skills. Moreover, going over the records of your days will provide a glimpse into your psyche, and the inner workings of you as a person. You’ll be able to identify the times of the day at which you feel like your best self and work the most efficiently.

These levels of understanding give us an enhanced awareness of ourselves and can help us identify our strengths and weaknesses. Developing this innate sense of self-understanding through journaling also helps us gauge the direction our life is heading towards. This sense of self also allows us to evaluate our current life structure and optimize our potential for the future as well.

Sometimes, people are stuck in environments that aren’t geared towards them. This can isolate people, making them feel like they don’t have a specific person to rant to or a shoulder to rely on. It can also be difficult for students to find therapists since therapy is often associated with extremely high costs.

In cases like these, a journal can act as a helping hand by allowing you to gain back control of your life. Journaling also helps combat feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth by acting as a medium of clearing your mind which happens as you journal your thoughts down either online or on a piece of paper or notebook.

Photo by Radek Grzybowski on Unsplash

As you record both your wins and your losses, you develop a “proof system,” where you saturate your mind with proofs that go against your self-perceived flaws. For example, feeling like you’re not good enough can be combated with positively journaling about yourself as well as digging into your past, through writing, to figure out the root cause of your negative self-talk.

This will provide clarity, which will then help in building your self-confidence.

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The 3 C’s: Creativity

Be it through doodles or ranting about the tough day you had, journaling is one of the best mediums to express yourself, both as a person and as an artist. Journaling helps you put your mind at ease when you turn your life experiences into art. It allows you to look at your creative endeavors from a new perspective. Studies show that

It’s also possible to integrate your journal with a sketchbook! The possibilities with a journal are endless. You can turn your journal into an interactive puzzle that can be unlocked on a day-to-day basis.

Ideas and little additions like these make your journal both interactive and artistic. You can use a variety of tools to personalize your journals. These can range from washi tapes to printouts that you can personalize your journal with.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

The famous saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is something utilized by ardent journal enthusiasts online. Often, people tend to document little details of their day through little mementos that make their months memorable.

I, for one, like to keep little evidence of my encounters like a bus ticket, a shopping bill, or a leaf that I picked up while walking back home. Looking back on moments like these helps me remember my week or month fondly, and this creates a positive association in my mind as well.

The 3 C’s: Clarity

It’s been scientifically proven on multiple occasions that people tend to work better when their distractors are out of reach. This is similar to keeping your phone in a separate room while you’re studying. Similarly, writing down your thoughts in a journal acts as a medium of clarity. This will allow you to level up in other areas of your life as well.

Journaling prompts can be found through a simple Google search or using platforms like Pinterest. Journaling prompts can range from an array of self-reflective questions to prompts that help you satellite your intentions for the upcoming month, week, or even year.

Through journal prompts, you can gain inspiration from the world around you.

Photo by Emily Park on Unsplash

By looking at journaling inspiration online, we are reminded of the fact that everybody’s journal looks different and that we all don’t think the same way. And that’s the beauty of a journal.

It reminds us of the common but important fact that everybody has lived different lives and has gone through different experiences. Therefore, journals help us understand the variety of the world around us.

Conclusion

The main focus of this article was to prove that journaling is more than just words on paper. Journals are a window into the days you’ve spent, the feelings you’ve experienced, and the life you’ve lived.

Have fun with your journaling journey and good luck!

Nikitha Mahesh
5,000+ pageviews

Writer since Oct, 2023 · 20 published articles

Nikitha is a writer who mainly covers the facets of lifestyle and the startup world. You can find some of her personal essays on her website and Instagram.

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