“You have power over your mind – no outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
What Is Journaling?
The way journaling works varies for different people. Some might use it to put their favourite quotes or memories down. Others might use it to log how their week went and track their habits. Whatever it is, journaling offers a meaningful way to start or end the day.
Why It’s Important
Journaling offers so many benefits but to better understand them, I’m going to introduce them from a stoicism perspective. Stoic philosophers swore by the use of journaling to help them live happy and successful lives. I’ll try my best not to make this sound boring.
Stoicism is about believing that happiness isn’t found in materialism but in virtues.
There are four key Stoic virtues:
- Wisdom: understanding what must be done, what must not be done and what is neither. That knowledge is used to make sound decisions and segregate our emotions from our actions.
- Courage: persevering through bad times and holding onto what our gut tells us.
- Justice: being good and helping others when possible. So we’re not only fulfilling our duty to act for the common good but also becoming the best version of ourselves.
- Temperance: being grateful for what we have instead of always seeking more. Being content and satisfied with having the essentials.
These four virtues are at the core of journaling so journaling is, in effect, a practice of stoicism. In fact, the stoics would journal religiously and some would carry their journal with them wherever they went!
Journaling also encourages us to adopt a growth mindset and think positively. Almost everything in life is fleeting, that includes happiness and the things we might get it from like money. These things might not be in our control but we can change our response to external events. Maybe not getting into your dream job isn’t what you had hoped for, but could open up many more opportunities like meeting new people and gaining new experiences you would’ve never thought you’d gain. It’s equally important as with achievements to journal about negative events because we learnt to accept the things we can’t change and reform opinions on the true value of things.
Lastly, journaling is a path of self-improvement and a reminder that there are always lessons to learn. Life comes with its challenges and setbacks but there are always personal gains on a deeper level.
The stoics believed that persistence and progress are far better than perfection, in line with the virtue of courage. As long as we keep moving, we can reach our goals.
And if that’s not enough to show the power of journaling, there’s a substantial amount of evidence to prove this. If you’re interested, check out this study on how journaling can help boost learning.
How to Start Journaling
If you haven’t heard of the book Atomic Habits, it’s great for starting something new like journaling. Although I haven’t read it yet, there are a few lessons I picked up from a talk by the author, James Clear. One of the highlights of the book is the idea of keystone habits and small steps.
Starting out with one line a day or answering a few prompts each morning are great examples of taking small steps to make journaling a habit. Once you start doing it every day, it becomes a keystone habit; these are things that you do every day by default and are prominent in everything else you do in life.
There are far too many ways to journal than I can explain in today’s post but if you want to navigate your way around and experiment, check out this article that I found useful.
The best way to start is to just do it! Journaling doesn’t have to be rocket science, nor does it have to be perfect. It’s just a blurt of your thoughts onto paper. You can start the day with how you’re feeling, any notable events or what you’re grateful for and do that consistently for one week. Once you’ve found your comfort space, you can build on your journaling technique.
Mornings are a great time to journal. Just the act of getting up out of bed to write down your intentions sets you up for a productive day. Write down a goal for that day and how you intend to reach it. It can be as simple as trying to cut down on screen time during your study breaks.
The evenings are when the magic really kicks in. At this time, you would review your goal for the day and ask yourself whether you had met that goal and what you could have done better. That gives you space to work on it overnight so you wake up in the morning with new thoughts and solutions to your problems. It’s slightly similar to the technique Reid Hoffman, the founder of Linkedin, uses of giving the mind an overnight task.
And that’s it! That’s all you need to start. Once you’re past this stage, the journal becomes more than just a place for daily reflections. It becomes the hub for organising life, brainstorming ideas and noting inspiring quotes from world leaders. So cherish your journal and let it make you who you want to be!
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