Many people swear by journaling. They take great pleasure in writing down their thoughts, dreams, joy, pain, and the mundane occurrences in their lives. More and more people are blogging as a way of journaling. But if you, like a large number of us get as far as, "Dear diary, today I..." or have a stack of beautiful journals awaiting that first entry, alternatives to journaling may be just for you.
Here are just a few benefits of journaling:
- Provides a way to increase focus
- Helps you release pent-up thoughts and emotions
- Can reveal and track patterns and cycles
- Clarifies thoughts, feelings, and behavior
- Builds self confidence and self knowledge
- May offer new perspectives
- Stimulates personal growth
If you haven't tried journaling or have tried and quit, the following alternatives may help you get started:
- Journaling can be as simple as tracking your moods. Depending on how your day went, put a smiley, indifferent, or sad face on your calendar for that day.
- If you feel like you are always stressed, rate your stress daily on a scale of 1 to 10. Put your ratings on your calendar and check back periodically to see how your stress is trending. You can do this with all kinds of positive or negative emotions.
- Journal on a spreadsheet. You can put dates in one column and words to describe your day in another. In other columns you can put things you did, thoughts you had, people you saw, or anything you want to remember. Journaling can be a collection of lists.
- If you like taking photographs, you can use captions as your journal. With each photo, write thoughts, feelings, or why the scene was worth remembering.
- Journals don't need to be words. You can draw pictures, make cartoons, paint, or just doodle about things of note to you.
If the benefits or thought of journaling intrigues you, there are many books on the how-to's, tips for, and topics to write about in your journal. It doesn't have to be painful, nor an everyday event.
Self care is about doing things that help you grow and that bring you pleasure. A journaling alternative may be a new thing to add to your self care repertoire.
