Why You Should Start Keeping a Journal
From Richard Franklin to Winston Churchill, many of history’s greatest achievers have kept a journal or diary at some point in their lives.
Now of course, I’m not saying that journaling is what made these great figures what they were. Nor am I saying that journaling alone will be enough to make you “great”. But what I am saying is that they can’t all be wrong. And actually, there are a ton of very valuable benefits to journaling that make it worth your consideration. Here are just some of them.
It’s a Record
When you write a journal, it of course means you have a record of everything you’ve done and this in turn is something you can look back over in order to learn important lessons and to put your life in perspective.
It can sometimes be a great feeling looking back and seeing all the exciting things you’ve done. But if that’s not the experience you get from your journal then perhaps it can highlight that something needs to change. Either way, this lets you honestly appraise your life.
And imagine being able to read over this in 20 years there will be so much detail that you would otherwise have forgotten! This is a way to immortalize yourself and to hold tighter onto those memories.
What’s more, is that it keeps a record for others and means that they can potentially learn from your experiences.
It’s Meditative
A lot of what most of us do on a regular basis will involve using technology, working on things that make us stressed and otherwise being wired and on the go. Writing a journal at the end of the day is an excellent alternative to those activities that is almost meditative in its ability to encourage focus. It’s quiet, it doesn’t involve a glaring screen and it’s a great way to unwind before bed.
It Can be a Powerful Tool
You can also use a journal as a tool. As well as writing about your day, why not also write down what you ate? Or what you dreamed? Or make a note of each day you worked out? You can even just make a note of your mood. This lets you assess your performance in any goal at a glance and also to get some useful contextual data that might help you to find correlations in your routine and the way you feel/act.
