Using Journaling to Enhance Your Positivity.
By: Abdulhameed Danladi
Tags: Journaling, Happiness, Personal Development, Writing Life, Personal Growth

Using Journaling to Enhance Your Positivity.

Photo by My Life Journal on Unsplash

Journaling is a highly recommended stress tool. A ton of studies have shown that people who write what they feel regularly are happier, less stressed, and even more healthy, so this has to be quite an easier and more comfortable way to stay mentally fit and spiritually sound.

There are very few limitations on who can enjoy journaling and tons of ways to journal, whether you want to turn journaling into a regular habit, weekly habit, or you just want to do it as a stress serum, it still plays a very important role in making you happy.

Journaling helps you release negative thoughts and put you in a state of peace, it's like when most people end up feeling better after talking to a therapist or a friend or family member, journaling also helps you not only in releasing those thoughts but also leaving the personal ones to yourself.

I have tried journaling throughout the pandemic and I have to say the effects it has had on me have been positive and very helpful in my daily life. Journaling has helped me in so many ways, within the few months I used journaling as a stress reliever, I have:

•Built my self-confidence.

• Clarified my emotions and thoughts.

• Reduced stress.

• Increased my self-awareness.

And achieved so many exceptional things just by sitting down and writing my feelings daily, and you can do the same.

And to do this is easy.

What is journaling

A journal is basically a book filled with personal records of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept regularly, in a less manly way, it’s a diary. Now, journaling is putting those thoughts down regularly to either reflect on them or use what you may have put down to inspire and empower you.

When journaling you have to write on events, decisions, and very important information that may have either brought you down emotionally or mentally or inspired you the same way. Mostly journaling is based on what you feel at a particular period in time and how you want to improve how you feel (if it’s a negative feeling) or how you would love to keep it that way (if it’s a positive feeling). For example, you tried pitching an idea to your boss, and he ignores it; you put it down in your journal stating the date, the day, how you felt, and how you want to change that feeling. How I would write mine would look a little something like this:

Monday, June 13, 2020.

Pitched an idea to my boss, I never really thought he would hate it so much, it sucks honestly.

How do you feel?

Like poop that got stomped on.

How do you want to change that feeling?

By finding my flaw during the pitch and correcting it, and then giving it another go.

Then I work towards doing better, and this doesn’t help boost my confidence alone, it also boosts my work ethics and helps me to achieve my dreams at all costs.

Journaling helps critical thinking and helps you see the upside of everything you do daily if you are the person who gets negative thoughts easily then this is for you.

How to get started

Here are some tips to help you jumpstart your journaling and help put all that negativity away, Hope you’re ready to get started.

Step 1: Getting the items

The first step to start journaling is getting the needed equipment for it. You can buy a journal, notebook, notepad, or anything that is basically bulky and has a lot of pages inside whereby you can just drop your thoughts regularly. I would strongly advise you to use either a journal or notebook, cause they can hardly get lost and are actually more than sufficient with journaling.

Step 2: Write your genuine emotions and set a goal.

There are no rules to what you write inside your journal, so use any word or language to put those thoughts down until you feel better, and also try to set a goal, which means putting a particular amount of time to your journaling, I use 20 minutes (cause I have a shitload of feelings I always want to put down) to write on my journal if you’re just starting I would suggest an interval of 5 to 15 minutes, but the most important factor in setting a time to write is for you to not and at all cost to not skip that time. The time creates a sense of reliability in what you’re doing, so set a comfortable time for your morning, afternoon, and evening entries without skipping the appointed time.

Step 3: State the date of entry, the day, the month, the year and even the time

The one mistake you might make when you start journaling is not giving information into what you have journaled. It’s just like you went on a fun trip to Arizona and all you write in your journal is “Arizona was the best”. So it was the best? That’s it? You need to state when you traveled to Arizona, the month you took the trip, the year and even possibly the time you took off and landed into Arizona, this helps give detail to your journal and makes you remember of what might have happened during that period besides the trip you went for.

Step 4: Describe every experience, even the unimportant ones, it can help with an idea of what to write and uncover the actual problems that were possibly bothering you

Every event matters, so put every event down. it doesn’t matter if it’s concerning the guy you hit while you were running on the sidewalk or your yoga instructor not really paying much attention to you anymore, all that matters is events unfolded and one of them might have been the reason your day went so well, or your day went terrible. I could have had over a thousand things happen to me in one day but it’s very possible that it wasn’t the promotion that got me all fired up, or my co-worker asking me out for dinner, but it could be the call my mum gave me that morning, or even just the fact I woke up, the reasons can just be seemingly endless, so always write about every experience for that day, cause honestly if you’re looking at your journal confused why you can’t put anything down concerning that promotion, then it’s very possible that shouldn’t be what you are supposed to write about.

Step 5: Write with gratitude

You honestly wouldn’t believe you have a lot to be thankful for until you put all the wonderful things in your life down. Even if you’re writing about a negative emotion or you’re writing cause you feel really hurt, look at other things you have in life that you should be more grateful for than whatever pissed you off or brought you down, instead of writing on how you lost your job and it really sucks to live, thank God and the universe, that at least you are alive and healthy, and you still do something new and even more creative than your last job, people like the likes of Steve Jobs, Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, and so many others got fired from work and used their creative minds to earn billions, maybe that job you lost might be a start to a decent beginning, so always write with gratitude and positivity and try to overlook most of the negativity in your life.

Step 6: Keep a log of success and read it on days you want to uplift your mood.

I arranged my journal, so it is divided into two halves, One for all the negative stuff that has happened to me and the other for all the positive stuff that has happened to me, In case I need to get out of a depressive state, reading the positive parts of my journal helps me realize I have achieved a lot more than I ever imagined and it also helps me realize that even though my life really is tough, at least good things happen and they have happened a lot. Sometimes, it's better to read your own success stories than somebody else's own, it empowers you more and makes you happier knowing you were the one that achieved everything that is written in your journal.

Step 7: Keep your journal secret

You aren’t writing a weather forecast, so the universe need not know you have a journal or know you even put your feelings down somewhere. Your journal contains goals, achievements, and most times downfalls that most people out there are only willing to ridicule as soon as they see it. Your journal is filled with your private history, so learn how to keep it away from people at all costs. Private things should always stay private.

The Center for Journal Therapy came up with a sweet acronym based on journaling, the acronym is W.R.I.T.E which stands for:

W: What do you want to write about?

R: Review or reflect on it.

I: Investigate your thoughts and feelings through your writing.

T: Time yourself to ensure you at least write for 5 minutes.

E: Exit strategically and with introspection

So that basically how to W.R.I.T.E your way into happiness and comfort, no matter who you are.

What happens next?

Like I said before, journaling has really helped me a lot during this pandemic, I have put a lot of problems down and from time to time I find new and decent ways to solve them, making my life so much more comfortable than it used to be. Starting journaling wasn’t easy at first I can’t even lie, I had tons of problems like forgetting where I kept my journal, setting a time to write but always ignoring the time, trying to force words inside my journal instead of writing how I felt, etc. But after I put some time and a very serious amount of dedication, I started doing it the right way and I started seeing the actual effects of journaling on my mental health, no more yoga, and continuous therapist visits for this guy.

I honestly feel like the continuous procrastination and continuous failed attempts were actually secretly pushing me into doing it better, cause honestly with each time I avoided it, there was this guilt I would feel towards not trying to put it into practice, and as someone who really dislikes guilt, it really helped me put more effort into doing it.

You might ask, is this going to work for me?

And I will happily tell you yes, it really will work for you. Try doing it for a specified amount of time for, try using 2 weeks as a starter and I promise you, the tension, stress, and unhappiness you might have felt over those 2 weeks will gently wash away like it was never even there.

And also journaling is not a magical spell that grants you comfort immediately, it is a method that takes its time to develop a more positive and more optimistic attitude in your life, making you more productive daily.

The Takeaway

We all deserve comfort, happiness, and stability in our lives. So why not try making yourself happy with just this slight step than keep paying for continuous therapy sessions?

Why not try taking your problems out of your life the “Write” way.

It could prove more fun than you can imagine.

Be sure to share your reviews on how it worked for you, I would love to know how much positivity it provided for you.

Have a pleasant one.