Why Journal?

Are you satisfied with your life? Do you feel happy about the things that you’ve achieved? Are you frustrated and don’t know what to do next? Do you want to achieve a goal? Do you have a goal? Do you feel out of control? Do you long for a more orderly life, a life with more purpose and direction?

Most people want these things. I know that I do. I want all of these things. I want to feel in control of what I’m doing and why. I want to head towards a goal that gets me excited.

Its possible to create the life that you want going in the right direction. Sadly, most people wander around aimlessly their entire lives. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The simple act of writing in a journal can significantly help. I’ve consistently written in a journal since the late 1980’s. There were some years when I wasn’t consistent but even through many of my early years I journaled. It helped keep me sane. I helped me unpack my feelings. It helped me clarify the things that I was doing.

My journal is my talk therapy. If I’m feeling frustrated (which is often) I journal it out. When I feel hopeless I read my journal. If I feel like I’m going nowhere I read and write about it in my journal. It always helps.

I love going back 3, 5, 10 or even 30 or more years to read what I was thinking. I can definitely see the progress in my life. I can see how I’ve progressed from an immature young man to the man I am now. It’s compelling to read how much I’ve changed.

5 Reasons to Journal:

1. Unpack the thoughts that are trapped in your mind. This allows you to make space for new thoughts, otherwise your old ones will continue to circulate in your head forever.
2. Documenting the happenings of your life. This helps because remembering everything that happened in your life and why is a almost impossible. I read a quote in the 80’s that helped cement my desire to journal. The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory.
3. Express your feelings in written form. This allows you to overcome trapped feelings. Seeing them in black and white is very helpful.
4. Keeping an eye on the progress of your life goals. Regular checking in on your life’s objectives keeps them in front of you. If you don’t have any goals it can help you formulate what you want in life.
5. Create a legacy for your posterity. Someday your journal might really help a member of your family.

Thoughts get bunched up in your mind. Unpack them. Write them out. I’ve noticed that my thoughts wander a lot so I journal about them every day. Journaling your thoughts is like pulling out a wadded up rag that just wrinkles and gets moldy unless it’s stretched and dried daily.

Your thoughts don’t stop so the process of writing in your journal never ends. It’s very unlikely that you’ll write your goals and then work steadily towards achieving them. It’s always an evolving process. All of it.

I maintain two journals. One is my personal journal where I document my daily life and my feelings about it. I write family stories, events that impact my family members and the overall direction of the family and my life.

When I had all the kids living at home I used to write a paragraph about each of them and Sam each morning. That helped me keep track of how they’re doing and what they might need from Sam and I. It really helped. Now when the kids are over they frequently ask to have me read journal entries from years past. We’ve all sat around the family room laughing about the drama that consumed us in the past.

The other journal I maintain is my Jon Ball Fine Art Photography Journal. It’s a vital asset to me because I keep my progress in there. I journal about the ideas that I get about what to do and how to do it. I have goals that I track in there. I’m trying to become a full time Fine Art Photographer, writer and speaker. It’s a complex project. My journal helps me keep it straight. I’ve actively maintained this journal since 2016. It’s amazing how much I’ve evolved my plan since 2016. It helps me so much to go back to see what I was thinking. Often there are good ideas hidden in those pages.

How to Journal

I’ve tried all sorts of methods to journal. I wrote in little notepads or official, leather bound volumes. I’ve got journals in bound books, spiral notebooks, all sorts of places. But the last 6 years I’ve journaled in Google Docs. It’s good because my handwriting is a little crazy and hard to read. Also I like it because I can journal from my desktop computer, my iPad or even my iPhone. I even set the docs to offline editing and can add a journal entry anywhere I am. I do miss the smell of ink and the sound of the ball point scraping across the paper though. But the convenience and effectiveness of Google Docs is hard to beat. I have seperate documents for every year.

I usually write around 500 words per entry. That’s about 3 or 4 regular sized paragraphs. Sometimes I write more. It depends. But I only journal for 10 to 15 minutes. Longer than that and it can get too overwhelming.

Writing can be very difficult if you are out of practice. It’ll take a few weeks to get your juices flowing but once they do it’s addictive. I’ve written in my journals enough that if I miss a day I feel it. I feel the buildup of emotion or thoughts that need a place to go. I’m so conditioned to unload my feelings every morning that I know when I couldn’t journal. I definitely feel it. I’ll even journal on vacation to keep the flow going.

Journaling can help. I’ve seen it in my life over multiple decades. Take the time and you’ll see the benefits!