A Career Coach’s Guide to Journal Writing Success

Journal writing is a powerful practice for connecting with your thoughts and emotions. it helps you tap into inner wisdom, resolve issues and create or document your knowledge and experiences worth remembering. Beyond being a critical tool for self-reflection, it also supports wellness. The type of journal writing I recommend is free writing, that is, allowing your thoughts flow onto the page without editing or judgment.

Journal Writing Tips: 10 Ways to Get Started

1. Timing – block some time that works for you: early morning, in the afternoon, before bed, or any consistent slot in your day. It’s best to develop a routine.

2. Format – pick a method that feels natural and works for you. You may use an online app, your phone, your laptop or a simple notebook. Personally, I prefer a journal/notebook as I love writing with a pen on paper. This allows me to feel and “see” my thoughts flow 🙂. Whatever you choose, make sure it feels safe and private so that you can “download” what you need to freely. (Some people even burn or delete their pages afterward as a way to release what they have written.)

3. Reflect and Focus – think about your day or an experience…run through it mentally. Let your mind settle down.

4. Journal Topic – settle on a thought, an experience, a conversation, an action you took, something you saw outside, an object, people etc. Anything… just pick something to get you started.

5. Free Writing – DO NOT JUDGE…free flow, just start writing. Don’t try and format or make sense, let your thoughts, feelings or emotions flow and the connections will start happening as you follow one emerging idea after another. Have fun with this personal time and space.

6. Practice – there will be days you feel you have nothing to write. That’s a topic in itself🙂 – “Nothing to Write”. Sometimes even one word on the page means a lot and that’s all you need to write that day.

7. Own the process – this is your personal space, you can write in bullet points; make shopping lists; create a bucket list; jot down dreams or paste in pictures and ticket stubs from your travels etc. There are no rule, make it yours.

8. Habit – research shows that it takes 66 days for a habit to be formed… therefore, be consistent and and keep showing up until it is easy and comes naturally for you to journal and something you crave as part of your personal time.

9. Learn and develop – there are countless resources, examples, and journal prompts available to inspire you. Tap into that wisdom. Personally, my journey began with Stephanie Dowrick’s book and it gave me all I needed to get started.

10. Celebrate and Learn from your experiences – the best part of journal writing is looking back on your words 3 months, 6 months, a year or even longer. Its such a wonderful and powerful experience to learn from your past reflections and see how your inner wisdom has guided you.

You will learn and discover so much about yourself and

what matters most to you in different seasons of life and notice how your perspective on the world evolves. The knowledge you create from your own daily life is uniquely yours and no one can ever take it away. How wonderfully empowering is that?

✨ Good luck, and enjoy the journey!

REFLECTION
If you gave yourself permission to sit with your own words each day, without judgment or agenda, what truths about who you are and who you are becoming might finally have space to reveal themselves?