Article by: Carley Varley & Philip Garcia
VQS Advice Blog | Cover Image by fotografierende
Learn how journaling can help you stay focused and purposeful.
- Table of Contents
1. How Do You Deal With Anxiety and Stress? - 2. Unlock Your True Creativity
- 3. Discover Your True Smile
4. Activate Your Daily Therapy - 5. Respect Your Mental Health
I remember one of the first times I’d heard of journaling was from one of my favorite TV shows, I had always kept a diary, I thought it was a very normal thing to do. Through my teens I decided to journal everyday and sure enough it helped me in ways I never realized.
As a creative, it is very easy to get lost in your thoughts, to feel discouraged and to get distracted. Journaling can help you stay focused on your goals and find your purpose. Today I’ll be sharing some of the best ways that journaling can help you and how it has helped me.
1. How Do You Deal With Anxiety and Stress?
I have been recommended journaling by many articles over the years and it is just like they say it really does relieve anxiety.
As a creative, I am constantly worrying and overthinking. When I write my thoughts down on paper, it feels like it clears the distractions and brings focus to what I am creating.
Try this: Set aside time to write down how you are feeling and how your day has gone. It is an important part of life to process how you are feeling and so that’s why journaling is so important.
134: Getting honest with your Mental Health for creatives – VQS Studio Podcast
2. Unlock Your True Creativity
It helps you to create! So this kind of ties in to point one but after you’ve processed how you are feeling, you then free up the space in your mind and often feel inspired to go and create.
Today I wrote in my journal for 30 minutes and then I instantly wanted to get on and get song-writing! You can also get song ideas from writing down your thoughts, this is sometimes how I write. I write down everything I’m feeling and then it becomes a song within a few minutes and I go to my piano and write along to it!
Journaling really does free up your mind and helps with your writing process.
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3. Discover Your True Smile
It boosts your mood!
After journaling I always feel so much better! You may be thinking ‘I hate writing my thoughts’ or ‘I haven’t got the time for journaling’ but I promise you after writing down your feelings and even taking 10 minutes to do so will really impact your mood for the day.
Getting down your worries, fears or frustrations really does free you up and means that you can leave those feelings in the journal and move on with your day.
It has been proven by multiple studies that journaling helps boost your mood, so don’t just take my word for it, go and check out some articles on journaling.
4. Activate Your Daily Therapy
Writing your morning pages encourages healing and growth! A wonderful thing about journaling also is that it helps you to heal and encourages you to really grow as a person. I have written down thoughts sometimes and I’ve realized “wow I actually feel so much better about this situation now than I did 3 months ago.”
Writing through everything and giving myself closure really helped me and also helped me to create later down the line. I also look back on things that I read and think “I actually felt that way?” Things that use to bother me don’t affect me so much now. I see my own journey and this can be very eye opening in itself.
5. Respect Your Mental Health
It’s a great healthy habit! Finally, what is journaling if not a great habit to have anyway? Setting some time for yourself to process your thoughts and feelings has amazing benefits for your mental health and is a great way to start or finish a day.
I don’t have a lot of healthy habits, but journaling is certainly one of them and one that I have continued throughout my twenties. It has helped me leaps and bounds and I cannot recommend it enough.
Summary:
- 1. How Do You Deal With Anxiety and Stress?
- 2. Unlock Your True Creativity
- 3. Discover Your True Smile
- 4. Activate Your Daily Therapy
- 5. Respect Your Mental Health
Congrats on getting this far! So, after sharing how journaling can help you today, I hope that you go away and give it a go. You can buy a simple notepad and draw or write your feelings down. It is an amazing habit and one that I cannot stress enough to be a great way of processing everyday life.
Let us know how journaling is helping you! We’d love to hear from you.
Article by: Carley Varley
VQS ADVICE BLOG | MINDSET TOOLS FOR CREATORS
