Looking to improve yourself through leather journaling? Want some of the best self-care journaling ideas in the biz? Don't know where to get started?
Then come along, as we go through some of the reasons you might want to improve yourself and why you might want to use journaling to enhance this process.
Some Ideas
There is no getting around the fact that self-care is essential for maintaining our mental and physical health. Sure, there is plenty of help out there, but using a self-care journal can help us to help ourselves, saving money and time.
To practice self-care is to improve our mental and physical health, boost self-esteem and creativity, and also to increase our happiness. So, here are some self-care journal prompts to get your self-care routine well underway:
1. Happy List
Lists are one of the central bullet journal ideas. Sure enough, those of us who journal use them for just about anything work-related, but what if you used them for a spot of self-reflection instead?
Instead of a list of things to do, try writing a list of things that make you happy and that you enjoy doing. It can be very easy to lose your sense of self to the incoming tide of work commitments. Thus, such a list is an essential part of any bullet journal.
2. Self-Care List
If you want to get really specific with your self-care activities, then why not have a list entirely dedicated to your self-care journal ideas?
This can be the one place where you keep all of your ideas relating to your mental and physical well-being. Practicing self-care does not have to be another thing to chase up, but it certainly helps to have all of your ideas for it in one place. In this way, you will not need a separate self-care bullet journal either.
3. Mood Tracker
The onward march of the days needs no longer be a reason to forget your emotions as they come.
It can be all too easy to lose track of how you truly feel when you have such a busy schedule. Thankfully, a mood tracker will help you keep track of how you have been feeling at all times, something you can look back on and react accordingly.
4. Spreads
Far from talking about condiments, here we are referring to spreads of one or two pages that smear all of the things you might capture in a list all over a page. For some people, this will be a quicker and more gratifying way of getting the message across, thus bolstering their mental health through journaling.
5. Water Intake
One of the seminal bullet journal ideas has been to use it to keep track of water intake throughout the day. Despite how important water is to our proper functioning, it can sometimes be difficult to properly keep track of just how much we have been drinking.
Indeed, in some instances, we can even drink too much water, something that is sometimes just as bad as dehydration.
Seeing as you will want to be drinking about two liters a day, this is plenty to be getting on with logging. You can get as creative as you like with this, too, so do not be afraid to customize the experience to your own self.
6. Bad Days
It is a simple fact of life that not all days go as we initially intended - and that is okay! Keeping track of them encourages the kind of self-awareness that tends to live inside those who do not have as many bad days.
Getting to know just how and why your day was not as good as you would have liked is a good way of getting to know what you can do about it in the future. That being said, sometimes there really is nothing to be done, and that is okay too - do not beat yourself up about it!
7. Gratitude
Instead of beating yourself up about it, why not be grateful for what you have accomplished? Sure enough, you will want to be realistic and absorb your losses and faults on a bad day, but such analysis can only go so far unless you also practice gratitude.
A gratitude journal is perfectly suited for this, though you do not necessarily need an entirely dedicated journal for the job (you can use a refillable leather journal for this). Just keep a regular log of the things you have been grateful for in a given day - you can even mix it together with your work journaling depending on your work style.
8. Sleep
Just as with water, sleep is another of those essentials that our bodies and minds can scarcely do without. And yet, it is not enough to simply have slept, we must sleep properly and well in order to function at our best and be at our most well.
Lack of sleep actually encourages a shorter lifespan, so keeping track of the amount of sleep you have each night can be a very useful way of making sure that you are not losing out on too much over time. And if you are, then keeping track in this way can be a helpful way to suss out where you are going wrong and what you can change to improve on it.
9. Brain-Dump
Besides all of the carefully catered lists for specific aspects of our mental health, sometimes you might just need a place to dump a bunch of stuff that does not have anywhere else to go.
Enter from the left, the Brain Dump, a perfect place for all of those things that cannot find a home elsewhere.
10. Meditation
The modern world moves frighteningly fast. The kind of silent and contemplative spaces that meditation offers are essential if you are looking for a place to get away from the buzz and bustle of everyday life.
Of course, it can be difficult to keep up with our practice regularly, so it is a good idea to keep a diary of your meditation. This not only encourages you to follow your routine more regularly but also allows you to catalog your various discoveries so that you may lose yourself in it even more.
Last Words
So, there you have it! Hopefully, this is enough to be getting on with at first, though if you have any questions do not be afraid to drop them in the comments below and we will look to answer your query as soon as possible!
FAQs Self-Care Journaling Ideas
Is journaling good for self-care?
Depending on how you go about journaling, it can be incredibly beneficial for self-care. With a blank journal, you can craft it for your own needs, thus customizing all of the lists and spreads to help you in any way that you see fit.
Need a way to keep track of your water intake? Just make a list. Having trouble remembering what makes you happy outside of work? Make a list and get cracking with some fun stuff.
What should I put in a self-care notebook?
Anything that best suits your own self-care journey. Need a way to remember what makes you happy outside of work? There is a list for that. Having trouble keeping track of your various moods and emotions? There is a list for that too. There is a list for just about anything you can conceive of, so look deep into yourself and figure out what you would most benefit from having in your own journal.
How do I start a self-improvement journal?
The first and arguably the most important part of starting any self-improvement task is to look into yourself. No exercise in self-improvement and self-care is going to be successful without honoring your own needs and wants to the fullest. Thus, before beginning a self-improvement journal, you will need to look into yourself and think about what exactly you will most need on a daily basis to encourage your self-improvement. What exactly are you wanting to improve in particular, and why?
