What I learned from journaling 365 days in a row

Cover Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

Back in 2018, I was dealing with burnout and poor physical and mental health. I read everywhere about the benefits of journaling for mental health and decided to give it a try.

I wasn’t really consistent, I would journal every other day, sometimes once a week, and I always skipped the weekends. But even like that, after some time, I noticed that on the days I journaled my mood swings minimized and my resilience was considerably better. And for the last year, I’ve managed to stick to journaling EVERY DAY.😱

How I built the daily habit

The effect of journaling on my mood became especially obvious when the pandemic lockdown started in late March 2020. I decided I wanted to journal more and I tried to make it a daily habit, but I was struggling. Back then my journaling practice consisted of long lists of gratitude, achievements, affirmations, and to-dos, everything on a well-divided pretty notebook and using pretty writing with color pens. It took around 1 hour of my day to go through this routine.

My first step into making this a habit was to simplify my practice:

Free writing for 15 min. + 1 thing I’m grateful for + 1 affirmation. No pretty notebook, colors, or titles. No corrections, just flowing. I had to make this the easiest it could be.

My second step was to keep track of the days I journaled:

I had a little calendar with 31 boxes, my goal was journaling for 31 days in a row, having in mind Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain!” technique. I failed on day 7 🤣 So I made a new goal of surpassing the day I missed (in this case 7) and I would reset my tracker back to day 1 every time I missed a day.

My path went like this: 6 days in a row, then 10 days, then 12, then 10 again, then 16, then 28, and then…then I made it to 78 😲

When I missed day 79 I didn’t reset the count as I had already achieved my original goal of 31 days. Instead, I did introspection and realized every time I missed a day it was a Sunday. So now I just had to make the conscious effort on keeping my promise on Sundays for the habit to stick. In conclusion, it took me 7 attempts to reach day 30, and approximately 82 days to build the habit.

My calendar looked something like this.

A third thing I did was to make journaling a priority:

Journaling is how I kick start my days. It is the first thing I do after shower and breakfast. At first, it was hard, sometimes I just wanted to start creating and not lose time. But now I can’t start working if I haven’t journaled as it helps me set the mood for the day.

I also tried to keep things fun:

In all honesty, some days I just didn’t know what to write about, when that happened I would write just about that (“I don’t know what to write because…”) and at a later time I would look up prompts or journaling guides. One of my favorites is “The Journaling Compendium” by Amie McNee, a guide with 31 days of journaling prompts. I also took part in the “Discover Your Why Journal Challenge” over Instagram and that was 21 days of fun and introspection.

On day 137 I decided to try other ways of journaling, in specific Bullet Journaling. Most of it wasn’t for me, but I incorporated trackers, monthly overviews, and quarter reflections into my practice. I’ve complicated things over time and I now journal for around 45 mins., but I’m happy doing it. I might explain my current journaling routine and structure in another post.

My insights after a year of journaling:

Journaling improved my relationship with myself

I’m getting to know myself. I have a better understanding of my fears, my needs, my desires, my patterns, and my values. This, of course, is a never-ending process, but every time I write I feel I untangle the fibers that make me me.
Knowing myself also means that I meet my shadow. I’ve gained awareness of the aspects of my personality that I don’t like, deny and/or hide. Because of this, I gained a better understanding of why certain things piss me off and I’m more patient with myself and others when I’m triggered.
When I journal I imagine two versions of myself in a room: One is the critical voice (I like to call it the gremlin or the inner troll) and the other is a kind, mothering, voice. I try to give equal space to both, ending with the kind version, especially on bad days. It helps me to be kind to myself.
Journaling helps me identify what thoughts I’m having that are not mine (the things someone/society told me and I internalized) and I can decide if I want to keep those beliefs or not and be more authentic.
Journaling also helps when I’m feeling stuck. I can always look back and know exactly where and how I was, and see how much I’ve grown since then. I get to like the person I’m becoming.

Journaling improved my relationship with others

I believe journaling helps me have better communication skills. I can process my emotions and thoughts before expressing them, and I can always lash out on my notebook instead of doing so into someone else. As a consequence, I slow down, talk less impulsively and complain less.
It helps me be more empathic. If I’m mad at someone for something they did or said I’m probably only thinking of my interpretation or narrative. When I write about that I can explore “what if it was me who said or did that? what if I meant something different?”, I try not to assume anything, but rather question my early assumptions. Most often than not my conclusion is that is not about ME, and not take things too personally.

Journaling improved the relationship with my Art

Journaling helps me understand the real reasons why I’m avoiding an art piece and I can work through procrastination or perfectionism.
It helps me clarify ideas through words and connect with what “I’m feeling” for an art piece.
It helps me recognize what is working and what is not. I can reflect on what exactly are my thoughts about a piece after it is finished and know why or why not I love it.
It helps me understand my thoughts around a client or a commissioned job before taking it. I can also work on my thoughts while I’m working on commissions, making sure I’m enjoying it, and this helps me to show up as my best self.
Journaling also helps me resolve any drama around my art, like pricing, recognizing my art value, or comparing myself with other artists.
Having journaled for so many days serves me as proof that I’m capable of committing to long-term projects, like my “100 sleeves” art project. It is a reminder that I can keep the promises I make to myself, that I can do hard things. This point can also be part of improving my relationship with myself, but it permeates my art.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

“Change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not”
– Arnold Beisser.

All these “improvements” didn’t come from seeking change but from awareness. Journaling is more fun and beneficial when you treat it with curiosity, as a tool to get to know yourself better instead of a chore to change your reality and get all the benefits everyone is talking about.

The most important lesson I understood through journaling is that pain and bad days are unavoidable, but suffering is optional. The paradox is that suffering can be avoided only by accepting pain, and not forcing change nor looking to make things better. Journaling does not take away any emotion, I still get to have my anxiety, but writing things down helps me with accepting it. A much more needed skill during what have been 2020 and 2021.

As Brooke Castillo said, “The goal is not to feel better. The goal is to feel.”