Journaling a Path to a Better Me
Journaling has always been a part of my life. I remember being given a new journal almost yearly when I was growing up. My parents always recommended I journal, even though I never knew whether they did it themselves. I would periodically write in these gift journals, but for the most part, they just sat on a shelf as a constant reminder of something I was supposed to be doing, but wasn’t.
As a teenager, the few times I did make an effort to journal it was, well, pretty embarrassing. I can think back to some entries from that time that, if I am being generous, were fairly cringe-worthy and that I hope never see the light of day. I never really understood the reason behind journaling. What import could the banal actions of my daily life possibly have?
When I served a religious mission in my late teens and early twenties, I journaled fairly regularly. We were instructed to do so daily and there is a whole industry built around encouraging this practice, with specialty “Mission Journals” for sale. But, even though it was compulsory, I recognized that I was in a different country having new experiences, and writing about those experiences was a practice worth cultivating. Despite that, I don’t know how much I really understood the value beyond simply chronicling what had happened each day.
It has only been in the last year, and particularly the last few months, that my understanding of the inherent value of journaling has been actualized.
As the year 2024 was coming to a close, it was time to reflect on my personal theme for the coming year. A yearly theme is an idea that is not original to me, but something that I have definitely adopted the past two years as an alternative to setting resolutions. I hold firm that, at least as often described, New Year’s resolutions are counterproductive and are a setup for most people to fail.
Don’t hear what I’m not saying, though. Taking time to reflect on our personal progress, to make plans to improve, is very worthwhile. It is the execution that is often lacking. In our current society of hyper-selfishness, regular reflection is becoming both more rare and more important.
So, with 2025 fast approaching, I began to really think about what my new theme should be. While doing this, a common idea kept coming back to me. I wanted to become more intentional in my decisions and actions. I wanted to cultivate a practice of taking conscious action, rather than reacting. As I reflected on the areas of my life that I wanted to improve, this idea of being conscious of my decisions and actions nicely encompassed all those areas of improvement.
The challenge became the implementation of this theme. As I said, execution is everything. How was I to best execute on my intentions?
It only takes a moment of looking at the news to understand that a huge problem in our society is the lack of conscious action. A quick glance at the news lays bare a whole host of thoughtless reactionary decisions, particularly at the highest levels of government. I was, and am, determined not to fall into that trap.
However, it’s more than that. It isn’t just that our default response is to react rather than act with intention. Part of the problem is a refusal to reflect. Often, we don’t think about our actions or our choices. We don’t take time to understand who we are, who we are becoming, and if our daily actions are moving us closer to that vision of ourselves.
It was apparent that my journey of self-actualization needed dedicated time and structure for personal reflection. That was when the answer became obvious: journaling.
As this realization settled in, I made a commitment to journal daily. In fact, the more I contemplated the role of journaling in my daily reflection, I realized that doing so once daily wasn’t adequate for my personal needs. I committed to journaling twice a day, and in very little time I discovered a new superpower.
Journaling is one of, if not the single most powerful tool to enable personal reflection.
But why did I feel the need to journal twice a day? As I began my practice, I realized that I had different needs at different times of the day. In the morning, the purpose became to set the tone for a successful day. This exercise centers around establishing a specific conscious action for the day, reflecting on how I did with the previous day’s action, and time and space for gratitude. Want another superpower in your life? Begin a practice of gratitude.
My morning journaling is done in a handwritten fashion, pen to paper, but limited to a single page. This forces me to slow down, but also be concise as I start my day. Those minutes of gratitude and conscious anticipation frame my choices throughout the day. Still, I am extremely human and fallible, so I found I needed a little more structure at the end of the day.
My evening practice is very distinct. This is an opportunity to reflect on and process the day, including an audit of the meaningful moments. It is an opportunity to examine the events of the day, and answer a number of questions. These include: What did I learn? When was I uncomfortable and how can I grow from that? What were my wins? What were some of my struggles? There is much more structure to this evening practice, with specific prompts that I have designed for myself and have modified as time has passed to better fit my needs. This is done on an electronic device in Day One, my preferred journaling software. This allows it to move more quickly, to get the thoughts from my head into the world with less friction, to keep those thoughts flowing.
I have done this every day since 2025 started. In that time I have come to rely on it as an essential tool for my mental health. I also have started to look forward to those times that bookend my day. I am learning more about myself every time I sit down.
It’s as we embrace these moments of self-reflection and give them some framework, some almost ritualistic importance in our lives, that they begin to exert power in our lives. With my regular practice, I am now more conscious of who I am, who I’m becoming, and whether or not the actions I take each day are in concert with my yearly theme and are moving me closer to the version of myself I want to be.
That, to me, is the power of journaling. There are many ways to go about this practice. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of YouTube videos, blog articles, and podcasts all with different methods, different prompts, and different styles of journaling. It gladdens me to see journaling becoming more recognized. However, I hope none of us just adopt one of those because someone said their method was the most effective. Rather, I hope those ideas act as a jumping off point, an introduction to what we can be doing to introduce this superpower into our lives. For us to unlock its full power, this practice needs to be individual. It can, and should, evolve over time as we each see its value in our own lives.
In the course of my normal day, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to interact with many people. I can tell from personal experience that introspection is an uncommon activity. Much of this is the constant bombardment from external sources. Distractions abound, monopolizing our time and our attention. But we can do something about this. We can take control of our minds. It takes effort, it takes time. And the benefits may not reveal themselves quickly. However, like many things in life, consistency yields the greatest results.
In order to improve, it is essential that we take time to think about who we want to be and whether or not we’re moving that direction. Inertia is the most powerful force in the universe, a force that can harm us or a force we can leverage for our benefit. If we are stagnant and not making any progress, then inertia is working against us. If we develop habits for ourselves and create forward momentum, then that inertia works in our favor.
But how do we know if we’re moving forward and making progress if we don’t regularly take time to reflect? Taking time to be introspective is the only way, and journaling is how that happens. It is one of the very few reliable tools that we have to both see where we were and where we are now, providing us the insights and guidance to become our best selves. In fact, I am convinced that the self-reflection that journaling offers is one of the hidden superpowers in the quest to become better humans.