New Year’s Resolution: Journal This Year!
Tips and tricks for getting started with a New Year’s resolution to journal
New Year’s resolutions
If your New Year’s resolution is to journal, you’re in the right place! We’re going talk about tips and tricks for making journaling your New Year’s resolution. From making a plan for journaling success in the new year to responding effectively to the hurdles along the way, we’ll cover how to incorporate journaling into your self care routine this year.
New Year’s resolution: journal
As you embark on your New Year’s resolution to journal, let’s talk about why you want to journal, what kind of journal you’ll keep, how often you’ll journal, how you’ll respond to moments of struggle, what you’ll need to get started, and what to do when your journaling plan just isn’t working.
Reflect on why you want to make journaling your New Year’s resolution.
Reflecting on why you want to make journaling your New Year’s resolution will help you put together the right kind of journaling plan for you and can even help with motivation when keeping your resolution to journal gets hard. What better way to reflect on a New Year’s resolution to journal than with journal prompts! Here are a few journal prompts to help you get started exploring the why behind your New Year’s resolution to journal.
These are the ideas I have about how journaling would impact my life…
I decided to make journaling my New Year’s resolution because…
What I want to get out of journaling is…
My New Year’s resolution to journal would be a success if…
When you’re making your New Year’s resolution, decide what type of journal you want to keep.
What kind of journal do you want to keep this year? There are a ton of fun and meaningful ways to keep a journal. I’ll give you a few ideas below, but you can also Take The Quiz: What Type of Journal Should You Keep?
Try a daily journal using daily prompts. To get started, check out the daily journal prompts for January and keep going with daily journal prompts for everyday of the year.
Keep a dream journal. Dream journaling is one of my favorite ways to journal. It can take a little practice, but keeping a dream journal is a really rewarding way to connect with yourself and learn more about yourself. To get started, check out this article with A Real Life Dream Journal Example Entry Illustrating The 7 Key Elements Of A Dream Journal Entry. Check out the dream journals in the shop, too!
Start a reading journal. If you’re a book lover, a reading journal is a fun way to start journaling in the new year. A reading journal can be a place to reflect not just on what you read, but on your own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about what you read. To turn your reading journal into a place to connect with yourself, check out these Reading Journal Prompts For Self Discovery.
Keep a memory journal. Memory journaling can help us reflect on patterns in our lives, keepsake precious memories, learn about the moments we value most, and see how the moments in our lives make up our life story. How fun would it be to have a collection of your favorite memories from the year in one place by this time next year?! To get started take a look at these memory journal prompts. You can find a couple of memory journals in the shop, too!
Journal about something you want to work on. Pick a theme for the new year, or a theme for each month, that you want to journal about and then work through that topic. For example, if you want to work on perfectionism, you could use these Journal Prompts For Perfectionism, and if you want to work on your mental health, you could get started with Journal Prompts For Mental Health.
Give bullet journaling a try. Bullet journaling can be about staying organized, just having fun, or both! In a bullet journal you create pages for different lists or themes, like an “about me” page, a sleep log, or a fitness plan. Get started with tons of free bullet journal printables here. Free bullet journal printables can be a template for pages in your bullet journal, or you can use a binder for your bullet journal.
Keep a gratitude journal. This New Year’s, agratitude journal can help remind you about the simple good things in life. In a gratitude journal, you can jot down a few good things from your day, or you can get started with these Warm Gratitude Prompts For A Grateful Heart.
Journal one line a day. Sometimes starting small is just the right way to get in to a new habit. If journaling is your New Year’s resolution, maybe a one line a day journal is the right fit for you! In a one line a day journal you write down one line each day in response to the same journal prompt. You could use a prompt like, “Today, I felt…,” “The best thing about today was…,” or “Today, I want to accomplish…”. To get started, take a look at the free one line a day printable, or check out a one line a day journal in the shop.
Keep a lyrics journal. To keep a lyrics journal in the new year, whenever the lyrics from a song pop into your mind, jot the lyrics down in your journal next to the date. When a song lyrics pop into your mind, this is your subconscious talking to you! Writing it down will tell your subconscious, “Hey, I’m listening!” Think about why the lyrics might have come into your mind. Do the lyrics relate to something you’re going through or something you’re processing? You can write about why you think the lyrics came into your mind in your journal, or you can just write down the lyrics. At first the connection the lyrics have to your life might not be clear at all, but eventually, if you keep up your journaling habit you will recognize patterns that explain why some songs pop into your head. This type of journaling also teaches you to pause and pay attention to what is going on internally with you, so it’s a quick and fun way to get into the practice of connecting with yourself throughout the day. If you want a journal specifically designed for this type of journaling check out the lyrics journals in the shop. Want to give this type of journaling a test run? Download this free lyrics journaling printable!
Start a quote journal. This year, when a passage in a book, a line in a poem, or words in a movie or television show strike a chord with you, write the quote down alongside the date in a quote journal. Reflect on why the quote appeals to you. Quote journals are an easy way to start getting in touch with yourself, and once you’ve kept a quote journal for long enough, they’re also a fun way to see various themes that have arisen at different times in your life. A quote journal can also serve as a memory journal of sorts because as you re-read the quotes you’ve written down you’ll remember the time in your life when you came across the quote. If you want a journal specifically designed for this type of journaling check out the quote journals in the shop, or you can check out this free quote journaling printable.
Try a shadow work journal. If you want to dig deep with your journaling practice in the new year, a shadow work journal is a great type of journal to choose. Shadow work is a term that comes from psychologist Carl Jung and it’s all about making aspects of ourselves that are unconscious, conscious; or in other words, bringing things that we don't know about ourselves out of the shadows and into the light. When we become aware of our shadow self, then we have the ability to make conscious decisions about how we live life rather than being driven by unconscious forces. This is how we meet our shadow self and integrate our shadow self so that we can live our lives with a sense of wholeness and authenticity. When something is unconscious, however, that inherently means that it’s difficult for us to see. Using journal prompts for shadow work is one way to work on learning about your shadow self. You can learn more about shadow work here, or check out the shadow work journaling prompts here.
Get creative with a blackout poetry journal. A blackout poetry journal is a fun journal if you enjoy creative writing and want to get in touch with your intuition. To create blackout poetry you just need a book page and a pen or marker. Cross out words until you're left with a poem (or even some nice prose). To keep a blackout poetry journal as your New Year’s resolution, write out your blackout poems in the journal and then write about why you think the particular words on the page jumped out at you. The act of creating blackout poetry forces your mind to wander and work in a way that naturally brings about connection to your subconscious and intuition. You can learn more about how to create blackout poetry as an intuitive journaling exercise here. If you don’t want to ruin a book page, you can use a free blackout poetry book page printable. If you’d like a journal specifically for poetry, wander over to the shop and check out the poetry journals.
Try a morning or evening journal. If you want to use a journal to process your emotions, thoughts, or your day, a morning or evening journal is a great journal type for you. You don't need to write in your journal every day for journaling to be beneficial, but it can be helpful to set aside a time of day that works well for you for journaling. In a morning or evening journal you can write about what you're thinking and feeling, what you're looking forward to, and what you're worried about. You can also use journal prompts to get ideas about what to write about if you want to dig a little deeper! A morning or evening journal is a versatile type of journal. In addition to writing about your day and your thoughts and feelings, you can record memories, analyze an important dream, write about what you’re grateful for, and do some shadow work exercises. To get started, check out these Morning Journal Prompts For Emotional Wellness or the Night Journal Prompts For A Peaceful Heart.
As you’re deciding what type of journal you want to keep as a New Year’s resolution, reflect again on what you wrote about why you want to journal to help guide your choice. It’s also totally okay to try out a few of these journal types to find out what you like!
When you’re making your New Year’s resolution, decide how often you want to journal.
Making your intentions concrete can be helpful when you’re trying to develop a new habit like journaling. So, before you get started on your New Year’s resolution to journal, think about how often you want to journal. Without a plan for how often you want to journal, it’s pretty easy to get three months down the road and find that you’ve only journaled once or twice. If you want to journal every day, that’s great, but you don’t need to journal every day for it to be helpful. Sometimes baby steps are the best way to develop a new habit, so you could even make a plan to journal once a week in January, twice a week in February, and so on, if you want to ease into the habit of journaling in the new year.
Make a plan for how you’ll respond to yourself in moments where you struggle to stick to your New Year’s resolution to journal.
Getting in to a new habit like journaling takes some practice. It’s pretty rare to start a new habit and never “mess up.” Odds are that you’ll miss a planned journaling session a few times, and that’s completely normal and okay. The trick to keeping your New Year’s resolution isn’t perfect execution of your plan, it’s how you respond to yourself when things don’t go perfectly. If you plan to journal every day and you miss a couple of days and then tell yourself, “Well, this isn’t working,” or, “I failed,” you’ll probably feel unmotivated to start journaling again. Conversely, if you miss a few days of journaling and you tell yourself, “I’m still getting the benefits of journaling even I miss a day here and there,” you’ll be much more likely to stick with your new journaling habit.
So, make a plan now for how you’ll respond to yourself when your New Year’s resolution to journal doesn’t go perfectly. Reflecting on why you made a New Year’s resolution to journal can help here, too! If you want to really reflect on your self talk as part of this process, check out these Journal Prompts For Positive Self Talk to help you take a self talk inventory, evaluate your self talk, and make a plan for positive self talk.
Line up journaling supplies and resources in advance when you’re making a New Year’s resolution to journal.
You don’t need any fancy supplies to start journaling, any paper and a pen or pencil (or even a computer or phone) will do. My first journal was a simple spiral notebook from Target that wasn’t intended for journaling and it worked just fine. As I’ve gotten more into journaling, I’ve decided that I like a bit of a more traditional journal, but the supplies themselves don’t really matter; what matters is having what you need ready to go. (If you want to get a more traditional journal, check out the unique journals in the journal shop.)
Likewise, have a few journaling resources that look interesting to you ready to go. If you feel stuck at some point in your journaling practice, it’s nice to know where to go for help. This website has plenty of journaling resources, so if you’re feeling stuck at any point, you can check out more than a thousand free journal prompts here.
Don’t be afraid to switch up your New Year’s resolution if your journaling plan isn’t working for you.
New habits can take some time to feel natural and helpful, so give yourself some time to settle into journaling in the new year. At the same time, reflect on what is and isn’t working for you as you go. It’s okay to change your journaling plan. Maybe you wanted to journal every day, but that’s feeling daunting, switch it up and plan to journal twice a week instead. Maybe you thought a gratitude journal was right for you, but you’re not really finding it helpful, switch it up and try daily prompts or shadow work instead. You’re trying something new, so let yourself explore what works for you as you journal in to the new year!
Wishing you peace, joy, and journaling success in the new year :)
Photos for this article were created with Adobe Firefly.
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