Just before launching Journaling.com I found myself at a professional crossroads. I was ready for an adventure. The trick was in figuring out exactly what my work-life would look like in the years ahead.

To navigate this foreign place, I did what I always do. I journaled. I considered my skillsets, passions, and goals as well as the areas where I’d made significant impact. I set my eyes on the future visualizing what I wanted those years to look like. Journaling made me dig deep and helped me look at the scary stuff too. What if I launched a new business and it failed?

Then the lightbulb went off. Journal in hand, I realized the work I wanted to pursue. And like that, Journaling.com was born. 

I’ve journaled all my life. This practice has pulled me through some tough times.

 

I’m aware that my experience is not unique. People write all the time to share the impact journaling has had on their lives. Whether it’s enhanced creativity or positive physical, emotional, or spiritual outcomes, people are reaping journaling’s benefit and they are excited to talk about it. 

It's my belief that everyone deserves access to this tool. We’ve cultivated an online community where journaling professionals and journal writers gather for reliable information, empowering support, spirited community, and revolutionary ideas. 

Journaling brings happiness because it helps us to see the forest through the trees. The act of writing helps us prioritize the people, places, activities, and work that foster joy and meaning in our lives. 

Journaling Tips to Increase Happiness

Make a bucket list

How will you use the time that’s ahead? Make a plan. Write down 30 goals that you intend to achieve in your lifetime. 

I wrote my list when I was in my twenties. It included mention that I wanted to write a book. Later, in my thirties, a publisher asked me to write a book for them. I was about to explain I did not have time for the project, when a good friend of mine said, “But, isn’t writing a book on your bucket list?” She was right! I had forgotten all about it. So I cleared my schedule and wrote that book; it became one of the best experiences in my life.

What will you put on your bucket list? Do you want to play a musical instrument, learn a foreign language, go to the Galápagos Islands, run a marathon? Every year, I pick something from my bucket list and make it a priority. Write your list now because sometimes when we are “in the weeds” and focused on the details of our busy daily lives, we forget what our big picture hopes are. For guidance, ask yourself these questions. What do you want to have? Who do you want to be? What do you want to learn, see and do?

Identify Your #1 Priority

What is your number-one priority in your life right now—survival, efficiency, hard work? Those are very respectable priorities. But what if you could achieve what you want to and go where you need to with more ease and more smiles? What would your life be like if you made joy, love, and happiness your top priorities? 

I invite you to try these writing prompts today and see what happens. 

• Look at your schedule for the day ahead. If joy were your number-one priority, would you keep your schedule as it is, or would you make changes? 

•  If love were your number-one priority, what would today be like? How would you be? Would you change the words you normally use? Would you communicate differently with family and close friends, and if so, how?

What Was Your “Best Thing” Today?

I have a “joy booster” practice that I learned from one of my favorite books: The Magic, by Rhonda Byrne. I’ve been doing it for years, and it helps me fall asleep with a full and grateful heart. 

Before you go to bed each night, think back on something wonderful that happened during the day, and write it down. The beauty of this activity is that while you choose your favorite or “best” memory, you get to relive other positive moments that happened in the day.

For more journaling tips and techniques, enjoy free membership at Journaling.com.

 

 

Rebecca Kochenderfer is the host of the podcast The Power of Journaling and founder of Journaling.com, an online resource guide, information hub, and community for journalers. She is also the author of Joy Journal. As an educator and writer, Rebecca feels privileged to have the opportunity to connect people with tools to help them live their most authentic and inspired life.