Keeping personal journals is an ancient tradition, and it stems mainly from the need people have for continuity and consignment of history. In fact, the first historian was probably just someone trying to make sense of the past by writing it down as detailed as they could remember. In that respect, keeping a journal is similar, because you consign events and thoughts that you consider important and relevant to your person, and in retrospective these notes can be enlightening. This is because they can show a person how they evolved, how their manner of thinking evolved, but how their life changed over time as well; such a perspective helps us understand ourselves better and keeps us in touch with our honesty.
In what follows we are going to give you a few tips on how to write a personal journal, so you can get the most out of this experience.
- Go beyond the facts – To begin with, when you write a journal, you needn’t limit yourself to reproducing facts; on the contrary, you need to focus on how you feel about those facts as well. Consider how they affect you, what emotions they stir in you, what thoughts they make appear and so on. If an event was important enough for you to write about in your journal, then it must have touched you in some way, it must have made you realize something that you should explore.
- Make this a pleasant experience – When you write in your journal, you need to be as relaxed as possible, and comfortable. Having the right tools to do so can be important, so choose a journal, notebook or diary that you like, and on whose pages you’d like to see your words. Even the pen can be important, as silly as it may sound. But if you really want to give this a go, then don’t hesitate to do it the way you like.
- Don’t criticize or censure yourself – One of the most important aspects of how to write a personal journal is to avoid criticizing or censuring yourself at all costs. Your personal journal reflects your soul and innermost thoughts, and nobody ever has to read it; so when you write, don’t reflect on what x or y might think about what you say, or how they might oppose it. Try to feel free to express yourself unencumbered by these imaginary critical voices that sometimes seep into our conscience. If there is truly something wrong with your way of thinking, you will be able to realize it yourself over time, when you re-read your words
- Answer your questions – If you’ve never written a personal journal and don’t know where to begin, or feel awkward at first, try asking yourself questions as if they were coming for someone else. This is a very good trick for learning how to write a journal, and it doesn’t matter what questions you ask, as long as you want or need to answer them.
These are some of the most important things you need to take into account about how to write a successful paper for publication or personal journal. As long as you enjoy yourself, and feel as if you’re making progress on a spiritual level, then you’re on the right track, and the journal pays off for you.
