Updated: Apr 24, 2020
I find that whenever I’m sad or confused or even bored, it helps to write. According to The Huffington Post, there are many benefits of mindful journaling.
It helps boost IQ: Writing often correlates with intelligence. According to the Facile Things blog, writing every day can help you understand your emotions better. Oftentimes, people who have emotional control are smarter. Writing things in your own words also helps you remember things that you would have otherwise forgotten.
It helps you achieve your goals: Write down your goals. Make plans. For example, if I wanted to write an article such as this one, I would plan it out like so:
Step 1: Find a topic — write about possible topics that I could try.
Step 2: Research the chosen topic — I chose mindful journaling, so I spent ten-fifteen minutes researching what it is and the benefits it can provide.
Step 3: Writing a draft — I try to first write a rough draft, where I try to envision what components my article would have.
Step 4: Writing my final piece: Soon, this article will be a final piece.
You see, writing about what I’m doing not only helps me be organized, but it prevents me from doing too much or too little to help me support my project. This article may be a small project, but this method can be used to support bigger goals too.
Improve emotional intelligence: Writing about what I’m feeling always helps me stay calm. Journaling is a very great outlet for expressing emotions. It increases self-awareness. Being able to understand what you’re feeling and more importantly–why you’re feeling this way– allows you to be more in control of yourself. Being emotionally intelligent also means that you can find good ways to control your feelings when needed.
Here are just a few mindful journaling prompts that you can use:
“If I could talk to myself five years ago, what would I say?” – Write about something that you say to yourself. Talk about something you wouldn’t do. Maybe a chance that you should have taken. Maybe something you should have done. If I could talk to myself 5 years ago, I would tell myself: “Stay a little kid, you’ll have plenty of time to grow up”
“The words I live by are:” – Write about a quote that you might like. Write about what it means to you and why it is important. One of my favorites is “Change your thoughts and you change your world” by Norman Vincent Peale. To me, it means that when you change the way you see things, the things you see will change. For example, this pandemic can be seen as a deadly virus that’s causing thousands of deaths, or as a lesson that nature is teaching us to not take our life for granted. Neither is more true than the other, yet one makes you wanna sulk in a corner and the other brings out a ray of hope.
Simply writing about one thing a day can have amazing effects on your mind. Here are some great resources where you can find more writing prompts:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/30-journaling-prompts-for-self-reflection-and-self-discovery/
https://liveboldandbloom.com/12/mindfulness/mindfulness-journal-prompts
https://www.lovelyholisticliving.com/15-mindfulness-journal-prompts-self-awareness-intention/
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