Atomic Habits: Journaling to Process Emotions
A habit I've traditionally avoided has become an indispensable one.
I’ve tried journaling off and on for decades, but it never stuck. I found it slow and frustrating. Over time I gave up on it, believing that it just wasn’t a good fit for me and my personality/temperament.
But looking back I realize I was never shown how journaling was a powerful tool I could use to clarify my thoughts, process my feelings, and grow in self-awareness. It was never impressed upon me how necessary it was to deepen and expand my emotional, mental, and spiritual health—especially for someone who tends to hold their feelings inside and get stuck in their own head.
Last year I picked up the practice once again, this time with a new growth mindset that focused on baby steps and avoiding trying to journal “perfectly” (whatever that meant to me at the time). A year later journaling has become one of the habits that has most effectively helped me organize and process my thoughts and feelings. This has built greater levels of resiliency, joy, purpose, and focus into my life and core relationships. I’ve begun to lose count of the times journaling has enabled me to get “unstuck” when I’ve found myself repeating dysfunctional patterns personally or professionally.
If you find the idea of journaling unappealing or its practice frustrating, here’s a great video that I’ve come back to several times. It outlines the benefits of journaling and offers a few different techniques so you can find a way that feels helpful to you.