How to Start Journaling for Beginners
Journaling has a slew of health benefits, but beyond that there are many reasons why you might want to commit to a writing practice. Not only can journaling offer you emotional reprieve as you’re processing a situation, but it can be really fun.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the blank page, I’d like to offer you some tips to forging down the written path. I’ve been journaling (fairly) regularly since I was eleven years old, so I can definitely help you get on the path to the covered page. Let’s go!
- Leave behind your perfectionism
You are not writing the journals of Sylvia Plath or Anais Nin, so your first step to journaling is to drop your perfectionism at the cover. Journaling isn’t about perfectionism. It’s about expression — leaving the trace of what you feel and think on the page. The act of journaling isn’t about what you create. It’s about the movement of the pen on the page. This is not for anyone else’s eyes or judgment. This is for you. You are the storyteller. You are the reader. You can be just as you are — totally imperfect and a little crazy (you are human after all).
2. Know that you can write ANYTHING
Sometimes people get intimidated by journaling because they think — I have to write a certain way, or I have to spell out my day from morning to sunrise. You…
