Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

Journaling for self-development is a big thing these days. But a lot of the articles I’ve read on the internet about ‘how to journal’ don’t work for me.

What’s important about journaling is to make it work for you and your needs. At the end of the day, no one can tell you what your needs are, so how can they possibly outline a process that’s one-size-fits-all? They can’t.

But there have been some tips here and there that do work for me. My theory is, take the bits that work, and use it to make a start on your own unique journaling style. Which, since journaling is an individual and personal exercise, makes complete sense.

Below are my four core principles of journaling. Take what you want, leave what you don’t, and have fun creating your own process!

Define your scope

I’ve yet to see an article telling people to first sit down and write a journal scope. On the contrary, most articles say you should write about whatever you need or want to at the time.

Sounds great. Sounds liberating and free. But it also sounds to me like a recipe for spending a good chunk of your time writing for writing’s sake. Bugger that – if I’m going to spend my precious time journaling, I want to get something out of it.

Figure out what you want out of your journaling process. Personally, mine serves as autopsychotherapy. I’m looking to improve my mental health, develop my authentic self, and help me live my life to my authentic values.

Having a clear idea of what I want to achieve gives me scope. What’s in and what’s out. This is a trick I’ve learnt from my day job. Defining what is out of scope is just as important as what’s in scope. If you start straying from your mission, if you start writing about stuff on your out-of-scope list, you can bring yourself back onto your area of focus.

My In Scope List:

• Who I want to be
• Values I want to live by
• Life-lessons I have learned
• Where I want to go with my self-development
• My strengths

Out of Scope:

• Gratitude – not only can I quickly go through gratitude lists in my head without writing them down, but I’m consciously trying to move away from external sources of validation and happiness. Therefore, I focus on listing my strengths instead.
• It’s not to record my daily life or document my day.
• I’m not writing about my external aims like career aspirations or fitness goals (I don’t have fitness goals – I’m a lazy slob).

If you’re keeping a journal for autopsychotherapy, don’t let it become a catch-all. It’s not a shopping list, or a doodle pad. Defining what you want to journal about will not only help you avoid straying from your purpose, but it will help you narrow down when you do (and do not) need to journal. Which leads me to the next point…

Don’t set a schedule

I’ve seen so many articles recommend that you set time aside each day to journal. What a load of bullshit! I say, aim to journal when you need it, not just because the clock tells you to.

I do this for a number of reasons:

• So I don’t get dependant on the routine
• So I don’t get in the mindset that I’m ‘always broken’ (i.e. I need to journal every day, therefore every day I must have issues)
• Because my time is valuable
• It avoids the temptation to just delay writing until the next ‘session’
• I’m less likely to stray out of scope because I’m stuck for something to write about
• The process of journaling, and what I write about, becomes more memorable
• I don’t end up capturing the little, dithering stuff, and I focus on big issues and important realisations

For me, because I’m working on myself, I journal in two strict circumstances:

1. When I’m in the midst of a crisis and need to work on myself – i.e when my issues show their ugly faces in my life and need to be dealt with
2. When I have a moment of epiphany or realisation about myself – i.e. the discovery of new and important information which will help me in the future, and so I need to capture it while it’s fresh

Often the two go hand in hand – the working on self eventually leads to important realisations and breakthroughs. Which leads me to my next point…

Use more than one book

I use two journals – one ‘draft’ book for working on stuff and sorting out my ideas during a crisis, and one ‘good’ book for keeping the breakthroughs and epiphanies in.

My working book is a cheap, spiral bound note pad, which I write messily in:

• It’s a crappy notepad I don’t mind being messy and fast in, or tearing pages out of
• I use it for free writing, and using the 5 whys to get to the root causes of issues
• Sometimes I just write out feelings about my past
• I also use it to work on life lessons and epiphanies when they’re not fully formed. It gives me a way to word things in a succinct and clear way.
• I use it to write out things I don’t want to keep, like “unsent letters”
• It runs on a “Deal with it and dispose of it” theory. Once I’m done working on an issue, I tear it out and toss it (in the recycling) or ritually burn it. This process of disposal is great for helping me let go of things (particularly the past).

My good book, I call my ‘Book of Rainbow Kennings’ because it’s often in analogous, and poetic terms, and has been coloured in a whole lot… It’s a leatherbound, lined journal, which I try and print in neatly, and I colour and draw in:

• It’s a blank book without pre-defined fields, although it does have lines to keep my writing neat
• I love to colour and draw. Colour coding stuff helps me remember information, and drawing scenes makes them special and easy to remember
• I journal after the fact. I work through issues first, and then keep the gems
• It’s largely positive, because it’s focused on outcomes and learnings, and not the problems
• This means that every page is pretty much my ‘distilled bits of genius’ – i.e. the really valuable life lessons worth learning. Which brings me to my next point…

Revise and re-read

The last step with journaling for me is to REVISE. Go back and READ IT! I’ve distilled the good stuff into a keeper journal so I can use it, not lose it. If it’s full of life lessons, tailor made for me, then it’s worth reading them until I know them by heart.

I study it. Learning something new – even if you thought of it yourself – takes practice and repetition. No point wasting good ideas by forgetting them. I’m less likely to employ them in daily life if I don’t know them like the back of my hand.

It’s also a good opportunity to cross-reference. If I spot recurrent themes, I double down on them. I’ve even written things in my journal like “Letting go is a recurrent theme for you, and it’s appeared several times in this very book, so you need to practice this more often.”

But the best reason for reading my Book of Rainbow Kennings is because it lifts me up. It’s colourful. It’s full of crazy, inventive little pictures. It’s poetic. It contains positive statements I’ve made about myself, which is a hard thing for me to do. It encourages me. It reaffirms the value in the journaling process.

Importantly, it shows me that (despite what I think in my low moments) I really do have something smart to say, even if it’s just to myself.

The final chapter

Even though my journal is freeform, colourful, and artsy, the process behind it is reasonably well structured. It’s designed to maximise the time put I into journaling, and ensure that I achieve my journaling goals.

Writing and drawing are fun things to do, but journaling to develop yourself needs a certain amount of thought. I could imagine nothing more demoralising than having written for days, weeks and months, only to discover I’ve made no progress (and I’ve been writing myself in circles). When I sit with my colour pencils and my journal, it makes those moments even sweeter, because I know they have genuine value.

No time with the pen is a waste. It’s fun. It’s fruitful. It’s worth every minute.

And really, that’s what journaling should be.