The Year of The Journal Habit

2023 marks my first ever year of journaling as a consistent practice for a WHOLE YEAR STRAIGHT. 

I am proud of this because:

1. It’s hard to build any kind of consistent habit 

2. I’ve always struggled to maintain a writing/journaling practice

3. It never once felt like a chore, but a true joyful form of expression

4. I feel like I’ve tapped into an intuitive curiosity

Forming habits takes work, folks! Whewf.

I feel like this is a lesson that I am constantly (re)learning. Forming new ways of operating (especially ones that are actually really healthy for you) takes effort, intention, and energy - all of which seem systemically lacking from our everyday lives. Alas - this is a goal that I’ve been working towards for a long time and I was finally ready to step up and embrace it into a daily practice this year. 

Building a morning routine was pivotal in integrating this practice into reality. I know that I’m always compelled to write when I incorporate it into my other early AM rituals, so creating time to sit down and explore with my journal became a standing block in my calendar (yes I have a morning routine calendar). From that regular cadence, I’ve finally found a writing practice that feels sustainable (and actually fun!). 

Journaling - historically for me, has always felt like a series of tried and failed experiments:

• I tried guided journals but felt somehow guilty when I didn’t want to follow the given prompts.

• I tried bullet journaling but was wayyy too self critical to like any of my pages.

• I tried morning pages but felt like I failed when I would want to stray from the outlined format. 

Nothing every seemed to stick, nor did anything every feel like it actually helped. 

Last year I learned how to release some of the pressures I was assigning myself around the act of journaling and embraced a practice style that works for me (I like to find pretty journals that inspire me, I like to write with felt pens, and I like to journal with mindmaps and lists). From there, scaling up to a daily practice felt much easier because I had built the habit in a way that brings me so much joy when I get to journal. 

My creative writing practice has gifted me countless little “life lessons” over the course of the year. The pages of the past 365 days are filled with love letters, serendipitous notes, divine lessons, silly poems, helpful lists, and countless meandering musings. I can flip to any page of my 2023 notebooks and find a curious note ponder…

…for instance:

(A mind map on sunflowers 09.24.23.) 

And the curiosity persists, in my review of the words that I have written and in anticipation of the ones yet to come. I have the feeling as if this dedication has helped unlocked an intuitive gift and I am so excited to explore all the feels (and magic) of that. 

Want to know what I journalled about this week? - View video here.