Journaling 101: Ideas & Prompts

How many times have you been going about your day when suddenly an idea for a social media post popped up?

Either you took a funny picture or thought of a witty line. Or, maybe you had a bad day and wanted to broadcast it to the Twitterverse in hopes of getting some positive or comforting feedback. Between all your posts and comments, you might even see your social media feed turn into informal therapy sometimes. It is natural to start thinking this is normal. The truth is, we all need some space, solitude, and privacy to really delve into our deepest emotions and experiences. Whether it is working through trauma or persistent anxiety, constantly broadcasting a play-by-play of our day to the world is not helping us in any way. Learning to sit down, even for a few minutes, each day to journal is a really powerful way to teach us to honor our feelings while also learning to identify our triggers and vulnerabilities.

Experiment with keeping a private journal.

Perhaps a loved one or friend gave you a journal as a gift one time, or maybe something caught your eye at a gift shop. Select a special journal where you can record your thoughts for this activity. Or, you can use the blank piece of paper included after these instructions. While there are certainly online apps that serve as journals, most clients find that the physical act of putting pen to paper is the most helpful. Once you have identified what you’d like to use as a journal, reserve a few minutes before going to bed to jot down some reflections, fears, hopes, or dreams.

Consider the following journaling ideas or prompts.

• Keep an art journal or sketchbook to draw any feelings, ideas, or thoughts you might have.
• Consider keeping a “gratitude journal” where you simply list three things you are grateful for each day.
• Use your journal as a space to write down every single one of your worries and fears in the form of a “brain dump.”
• Make your journal a place to write down inspirational quotes you come across or positive affirmations about yourself. Each day come up with a single quotation or affirmation.
• Write down a list of everything you did that day. It doesn’t have to be long paragraphs, just a bulleted list of when you woke up, what you ate, what you did, who you talked to, and so forth. You can choose a number to rate how you felt about the day on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being awful and 10 being wonderful.
• Pick one of the goals you have been working toward in this workbook, and write about how your progress is coming along and how you might want to change things up to help you succeed.
• If you are currently in therapy or meeting with a counselor, consider writing down the things you might want to bring up at your next session. It can help jog your memory regarding what you wanted to talk about.