How To Inspire Your Daily Journaling Practice
-
Journal everyday – preferably in the morning when you first get up – before all the distractions. Use a notebook, store bought journal or handcrafted one, and pen, pencil and/or colored markers. A 15 minute practice each morning will usually yield the 3 pages Julia Cameron calls Morning Pages in her book The Artist’s Way.
-
Suggest you write in long hand vs. keyboarding as your journal. The short-term and long-term benefits are not achieved when only keyboarding in your journal practice.
-
Journal every day. Don’t worry about what you are writing, just keep the pen to the paper. You may find you write or sketch and either is fine.
-
Exercise gratitude each evening: list 3-5 or 10 things you are grateful for that day and write them in your journal.
-
Practice writing circles or swirls with both hands simultaneously. Watch how you resist your non-dominant hand. Work at it to improve writing/printing with non-dominant hand.
-
Commit to 30-day Play Dates – for the next 30 days, find something each day in your favorite color and write about it for 5 minutes. Stretch your imagination. If you don’t see your color, pretend you did and write about it. Exaggerate your story.
-
Schedule Play Time in your busy schedule… Yes! let go and play … have fun… take a nap… sing, skip, paint… do something different… and something playful.
-
When you journal, incorporate color on the page with a pen, colored marker or paint.
-
Use the stickers found on fruits and vegetables – paste one on a blank page. Draw a picture of the fruit or vegetable that the sticker came from…. Write on the page about your life as this fruit or vegetable.
-
Carry a small notebook with you at all times (and of course a pen too) to jot ideas, words and/or phrases for using later either in your journal or your writing works.
-
Keep a journal on your night stand, for writing in the middle of the night (can’t sleep?) or for noting dreams upon awakening.
-
Re-write the ending to your favorite childhood story with you as the lead character.
-
Set a timer to write… set a timer to be creative… stop when the time is up! Later continue to spill creative ideas from this timed exercise in a pocket journal.
-
Get Out and About… My favorite – going to a coffee house and listening to conversations… this will often spark something I want to write about.
-
Regular journaling taps into your core essence developing and expanding your creativity.
-
Morning Pages – as described by Julia Cameron in The Artist Way – is great way to get started if not familiar with journaling.
-
Best of all… Journal daily for 10-15 minutes… no excuses! If you say you have no time, then all the more reason why you need to journal everyday for at least 10-15 minutes. Make the time! You’re worth it!
