Heya munchkins!
A lot of people seem baffled when I tell them my hobby is ‘Journalling’. Heck! Even I didn’t know what I had been doing passively for so long was called ‘Journalling’. Ever since I discovered its huge benefits that I’ve been experiencing and later after I researched about it I’ve been actively pursuing it as my hobby.
The basic idea of journalling is maintaining a written journal that explores your thoughts and feelings. But, don’t mistake it for writing a diary, cuz, writing a diary is superficial, its a record of the events in your life while journalling explores the feelings and your thought process behind those events. It’s more like your mind in words. A mind book. The best part of journaling is, it can be whatever you want it to be. For me, it is creative writing in 3 different areas; thought process, writing skills and artistry.
Journalling is a powerful tool to self-discovery, self-analysis, and self-reflection and it works the same or in some cases better than meditation. It’s an exploration of who you are, what you think, and how you feel. The end result of it all being a better understanding of the self which further results in stability in action and it also evokes the creative capacity of the brain which has been stagnant for a while in most cases. Ask yourselves this- When was the last time you wrote something original straight out of your mind that made you think deeply in order to write? Except for the days when you wrote essays in school days, have you really?
Benefits of penning down your thoughts are huge:
Goals? Write them down. Helps align your mind to your goals and helps to track the progress.
Idea Incubator. When was the last time you penned down your billion dollar idea? Didn’t think it would work out, eh? You know better. (wink! )
Stress Buster. Journalling regularly has resulted in improved mental healing. Another study claims to show a direct effect of journalling on faster physical healing. ( Don’t believe me: google! ) It is also recommended by therapists and works wonders.
Evokes the creative capacity of the brain. It stimulates your thought process for the better.
You get better at writing! Like I found out the difference between ‘evoke’ and ‘invoke’ while writing this piece, I’ve learned a ton of things by writing and improved. You getting better at writing is an obvious by-product of journalling.
Self-awareness. The term is often used loosely and thought to be reserved for saffron-clad spiritual beings but self-awareness of your thoughts is very important to be truly happy and ‘sorted’ in life. If you know yourself, that is when you can have some capacity to understand others. Self-awareness also means questioning your steps and beliefs in order to make better decisions. It’s not complicated and it just means knowing your strengths and weaknesses better because when you know them that is when you could use your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
Writing a journal is easy.
1. It doesn’t have to be P̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶. You ain’t writing for Oxford! You’re writing for yourself, so, say to hell with grammar and perfect. Maybe even invent words of your own but just start. Write about what scares you, excites you, your goals and all the stuff that interests you and everything you feel.
2. Besides a brand new blank-paged notebook, the only requirement for this is you to be true and genuine in your writing.
The point is, it’d be a zero-cost-billion-dollar idea to start journalling and there’s a reason when I tell you to use a blank-paged notebook to write on.
Happy Journalling!