4 Journaling Ideas to Enhance Your Life

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A journal is a place you can hold your thoughts and ideas, your memories and insights, and your plans for the future. You can make a list of your life goals or doodle a silly picture of a puppy; you can track your habits or enumerate the places you wish to travel to someday. A journal is a tool you can use to gain clarity, grow personally, and enhance your life, by writing everything from to-do lists to inspiring quotes to silly jokes to your mission in life

Here are some specific examples of entries you may consider keeping in your journal.

Magical Memories

Life is full of moments that seem almost magical, but too often they pass with little more than a smile and are soon forgotten. Maintaining a place to chronicle these moments in your life allows you to revel in the magic a bit longer and also look back upon the abundance of magic in your life as time goes by.

Simply set aside a page or two where you’ll jot down those moments as they come, or as a practice at the end of each day or week. Record those times when your young child says something funny, those serendipitous meetings you never expected, those times when you knocked it out of the park, the moment you arrived on your amazing vacation, and even those simple moments at home when you peacefully appreciate the blessings in your life. Life is magical if you take time to notice.

Habit Tracker

If there are daily habits you’re aiming to stick to, a habit tracker is an excellent tool that can measure your progress and motivate your continued success.

To create a monthly habit tracker, number columns across the top of a page with the days of the month. Along the left-hand side of the page, label each row with a specific habit you’d like to maintain each day. For example, you may want to drink eight glasses of water each day, go for a walk outside each day, or wake up at 5 a.m. each day. Whatever habits you’re trying to maintain, mark each day as you successfully fulfill that aim. You may find the desire to check it off to be motivating enough to complete each habit each day.

Life Vision

A journal is not only a great place for keeping track of details or chronicling the day-to-day, but also for considering the big-picture vision you have for your life.

What are your highest aims? What kind of person would you be at your absolute best? What do you believe your life’s purpose is?

Taking time to think through and write about these big ideas can be a valuable exercise. You’ll create a vision for your life, and because it resides in your journal that you interact with each day, you can review, enhance, and reinforce this vision for yourself on a regular basis.

Someday List

We’ve all got those things we’d like to be doing, but we don’t currently have the time or resources to take action on them immediately. However, we want to remember them and possibly make them happen “someday.”

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Rather than trying to mentally remember them for the foreseeable future, keep a running list of things for someday.

These can be big things, such as writing a book or starting a family, or small things, such as buying new curtains or trying a new recipe. Getting these things out of your head and down on paper offers a sense of security and relief that they’ve been captured.

There are many more ways journaling can enhance your life. Make time each day to review, write in, and enjoy your journal. As you fill journals and move on to new ones, keep the old ones. The magical memories, the progress you’ve made, and the journey of your life are captured within those pages.