Just like dating that new beau, starting a journal is easy – it’s exciting, mysterious, invigorating… you’re ready to spend every moment with your new love (sounds familiar doesn’t it?). But we all know what’s coming – that honeymoon period is over and now your journal feels like a chore. Yep, your motivation has tanked – so now what?
Journaling is something you may have started to help reach a goal, help with stress relief, or just help keep your daily to do lists from taking over your life. Regardless of why you are keeping a journal, you may find that you have a lack of motivation to continue it at some point. It happens to everyone, you are definitely not alone. If you are having a motivation issue, here are some tips that can help you keep that excitement alive and even perk up some changes to your journaling routine.
1. Create Daily Prompts
Creating daily prompts is a great way to keep you motivated. The trick to this is not doing this daily. Instead, you want to do this weekly for the week ahead. This will give you enough to keep you busy, things to look forward to and things to focus on. For example, you can write out prompts that deal with upcoming events at work, goals you are trying to reach, or events that you are looking forward to. You can even make prompts about politics, sports, or even movies coming out that you want to see. Just make sure they really make you think so you have something to write about.
2. Don’t Just Write
You do not have to write in every journal entry you have. In fact, you can put in pictures, drawings, print out a favorite meme, or just put in something as simple as a pressed flower. The point is to keep your journal personal. Put things in your journal that mean something to you. You may find that no one understands why you just wrote down a date, a time, or put in a small piece of paper. You know that the date may be something important in your life, the time may be when something amazing happened to you, or the small piece of paper may be the last note a family member wrote. Don’t just write. Feel instead.
3. Decorate Your Journal
Decorate you journal. It is yours on every page internally so make it yours externally as well. Make it a journal that represents you. You can decorate the outside, the pages, and the flaps. Make sure that the journal is inviting to you and calls to you to write in it. You want something that is as welcoming as your home, your bed, or even your sofa. Make sure you love the way your journal looks. If you aren’t feeling crafty, you can buy a journal with a fantastic cover. Why yes, I do have quite a few that you might like :-), just head over to the home page and go shopping!
4. Share some Entries
Sometimes the motivation we need in life comes from other people. For that reason, sharing your journal entries with others may help you keep that motivation. Choose something that is not very personal. For example, if you have a picture you drew or an entry you made that is a poem or thought then share that. The positive feedback can be very motivating to keep you going.
By incorporating these tips you can reclaim your journal mojo and perk yourself up for your journaling routine. You may even discover some reasons you lost your motivation and avoid those in the future.
Stay tuned for more journal prompt ideas in a future post. Until then, remember to live…write…dream!
