Journaling can be a life-changing undertaking. That’s really not an exaggeration either. There is some serious power behind writing down your thoughts, feelings, and reflections.

Here’s the most amazing part about journaling: it’s such an extremely low investment that gives an extremely high return.

What do I mean by that? Why did this post about journaling just become a finance lesson? Let me explain.

It’s simple really, journaling is a crazy simple activity. The actual physical cost is nothing but a notebook and pencil or pen, and the time cost is only a few minutes per day. That’s a really low investment to make.

On the other side, this “investment” can yield immense returns. The value that you can get from journaling can literally change your life. Not bad for a few cents and a few minutes of your day right?

It takes nothing more than breaking out a piece of paper and starting to write, but why should you do it? Of course I won’t just slap down a bold claim like “journaling will change your life” without backing it up with some reasons why. This isn’t fake news, and this isn’t clickbait.

Okay, maybe there’s a small amount of clickbait but you can’t judge a guy for trying to drive some engagement. Either way, let’s jump in to it.

The Many Benefits of Journaling

It’s Therapeutic

There’s really just something about keeping a journal that has a calming effect. It’s good for the soul. I always feel a sense of relaxation when I can sit down at the end of a long day and scribble down some thoughts, ideas, and reflections. It’s just time between me and myself, and that’s something we all need in our lives. Journaling enables that sense of serenity, and it’s definitely something to be sought after.

It Gives You a Bird’s Eye View of Life

Another one of the benefits of journaling is that is allows you to take a unique perspective on your own life. Our minds are constantly darting around. One moment we’re thinking about this, the next moment we are thinking about that. Often, we aren’t even aware of what exactly it is we are thinking right now, let alone what we were thinking about 30 minutes ago.

Keeping a journal gives you a chance to materialize all that noise in your head into concrete words. It forces you to sit down and analyze what happened that day, what you thought, how you felt, things you want to do, etc.

And even more convenient is that all of your ramblings are kept in one concise notebook (or several!). Because of this, you are able to go back and analyze what you wrote. This gives you a sort of bird’s eye view over your life, which can be extremely grounding and beneficial to understanding how you tick.

It Will Help You Achieve Your Goals

One of my favorite things to do when I’m writing in my journal is lay out what I want to accomplish, and what I did accomplish that day. I do this every single day. And this continual revisiting and rehashing of your goals has been scientifically proven to boost the likelihood that you will achieve them.

It’s crucial to your progression in life to constantly revisit your goals, and for me (and hopefully you too) a really quick and easy way to do this is to incorporate it into a journal entry. Even going back to previous entries and looking at what you wrote related to your goals can have immense impacts on your drive to achieve them.

It Helps With Stress Management

I wrote a post a short while ago going into depth about how to manage your stress. In that post one of the methods I recommended was keeping a journal. Life can get really crazy really easily. We get totally swept up by the hustle and bustle of the day to day grind, and this leads to us becoming ungrounded. This ungroundedness in turn leads to the development of some serious stress over time. If left unchecked, that stress can begin to have detrimental affects on both your physical and mental health.

We can combat this by keeping a journal. Another one of the many benefits of journaling is stress management! Writing down everything that happens to you, as well as how you feel and what you want to accomplish will allow you to be more grounded in your life, which will lead to less stress. And less stress is something all of us could use.

It Promotes Mindfulness

This partly goes off the idea from the last paragraph. Life constantly throws us for loops. We are like grains of sand in a whirling ocean, being thrown around to and fro. A benefit of journaling is it enables you to cultivate mindfulness by stopping and reflecting. The grain of sand settles on the floor and is calm once more.

Mindfulness is all about being aware, and journaling promotes awareness just by doing it.

So now you’ve got 5 big reasons to start keeping a journal right this second. Now surely you must be wondering: “But Kyle, that’s great and all, journaling sound super cool. But how can I maximize the benefits of journaling? How can I reap those sweet sweet therapeutic benefits that come with it and enrich my life to a new level I had not yet known before?”

Admit it, that’s exactly what you were thinking. Do not fret, because that’s exactly what I’m going to share with you next.

Steps to Maximize the Benefits of Journaling

Stay Consistent With It

The number one key to success with journaling is staying consistent with it. The key to anything in life really is consistency, and this is no exception. You simply aren’t going to reap as many benefits if you’re writing a journal entry every now and then as opposed to writing one every day.

It’s definitely a habit you have to form. You have to make it a point to make time and space to write in your journal each and every day. It can be in the morning, or at night, or anything else. The time doesn’t matter. What matters is the consistency. Get that journal looking thick.

You’ll be able to maximize the benefits of journaling if you have more to work with. All of those positives of journaling that I listed above could be applied to every single day if you stick with it.

So stick with it. Be consistent. Make it a point to journal every day.

Don’t Be Afraid

When I first started trying to keep a journal, I was always afraid that my mother was going to sneak into my room and steal it and read through all my entries. This had a huge effect on what I wrote down into the journal. Every entry I wrote, I had the mindset that someone else was going to read it.

That’s no good. You can’t be afraid of someone else reading it. This just takes away from you fully letting yourself out onto the pages. It takes away from the therapeutic benefits of pouring your soul onto paper. It takes away from the ability to look back and see what you were truly like.

Don’t be afraid. Be yourself. You are who you are and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It takes a lot to open up, even to a private journal that has no form of judgement or bias against you. Allowing yourself to fully open up to a piece of paper can be so freeing and have drastic effects on your life. So don’t be afraid. It can only help you.

Write Longer Entries

Going off the idea of not being afraid of someone else reading your journal, you also shouldn’t be afraid of really going all out on your entries. Get everything you possibly can down onto that paper. We have so much stuff go through our minds every day. We feel so many emotions, ideas, and experiences. Just let go and let it all out.

Write what happened during your day, then write the way you felt throughout the day, then write what you liked about the day and what you didn’t. Write about your goals for the day, week, month, or year. Explain to yourself how you want to get there and how you’re doing on them so far.

I also always like to end an entry with something I’m grateful for. Gratitude is awesome, and it can really help you feel better about yourself.

Don’t hold back with your entries. Get everything out so that when you go back and revisit, you can truly reap the benefits of journaling to the best of your abilities. Which brings me to the next point.

Go Back and Revisit

This is the single most important one of all the benefits of journaling. Having all of your experiences, thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, goals, and everything else all in one single location is a gold mine.

A key to maximizing the benefits of journling is to look back on what you’ve written. Use that bird’s eye view that journaling allows you to have to your advantage. You can look at what your past self wrote from a perspective where you’re not in that moment anymore. You may not be feeling the same way that you felt when you wrote that entry. Your emotions and outlook may be completely different.

Check back on the things that you said. Analyze the way life was going for you. See the progression that it takes. This has immeasurable and priceless value. I can’t stress it enough.

What Are You Waiting For

Journaling has the potential to change your life. There are so many benefits to journaling that there is truly no reason to not start keeping one. For only a few minutes per day of your time you can feel less stressed, more connected with your life, more grounded, more understanding and empathetic to yourself, and more oriented.

So what are you waiting for? Break out a paper and a pencil and get writing. Each and every entry has a mountain of benefits waiting for you to harvest. Do something great for yourself and start keeping a journal today.