EktayaA notebook, a pen, a few minutes. Nobody will read what you write, and that's exactly what makes the exercise possible.
Writing for yourself has nothing to do with literature. You don't have to write well, use full sentences, or even reread what you wrote. There are two main ways to go about it: the personal journal, where you write down what you're going through and feeling, and the gratitude journal, where you note what was good in your day. The two complement each other, and you can easily keep both in the same notebook.
Personal journal and gratitude journal: what's the difference?
A personal journal is an open space. You write whatever is on your mind: an argument, a decision to make, a moment of joy, a wave of tiredness, with no instructions. It helps you get what's been going around in your head out onto the page, where you can see it laid out in front of you, which often lets you see a little more clearly.
A gratitude journal is more structured. Every day, or a few times a week, you note a small number of things you feel grateful for. It doesn't ask you to recount your day, only to pick out what mattered, in a good way.
What the research says
Gratitude has been the subject of many psychology studies. One of the most cited was published in 2003 by the American psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough. For ten weeks, students wrote down each week either things they were grateful for, hassles, or neutral events. The group that wrote down its gratitude rated their lives more favorably on average and was more optimistic about the coming week. That's an average measured across a group, not a promise for every person, and the effects seen in this kind of study often remain modest.
On the journaling side, the American psychologist James Pennebaker began studying in the 1980s what he calls expressive writing: writing your deepest thoughts and feelings about a difficult event, for about fifteen minutes a day over a few days. His work also shows something useful to know before you start: right after writing about a painful subject, people often feel sadder or more stirred up than before. That's a common reaction. It doesn't mean the exercise isn't right for you, but it's a good reason to do it when you won't be rushed afterward.
How to keep a gratitude journal
- Pick a set time. The evening, right before bed, works for many people, because the day is behind you. Mornings, thinking back on the day before, also work.
- Write down three things, no more. Three lines are enough. An overly ambitious journal is one you give up on after a week.
- Be specific. “My family” comes up quickly every evening and ends up meaning nothing. A sentence like “someone close called just to check in” makes you revisit the scene, and that's where the exercise happens.
- Add why. Half a sentence about what that moment gave you, or about the part you played in it.
- Vary it. If you write down the same things every evening, look in different places: a person, a moment for yourself, something your body did, a detail from the street.
You don't need to do it every day. If the exercise becomes mechanical, a few times a week is enough.
How to start a personal journal
The blank page often stops people more than the subject does. A few ways to get going:
- Write without stopping for ten minutes, setting the timer on your phone, even if you write “I don't know what to write” for the first two lines. The American author Julia Cameron popularized a version of this practice in The Artist's Way (1992), her “morning pages”: three pages written by hand every morning, without rereading them.
- Start from a question: what took my energy today, and what gave me some? What do I need this week that I haven't given myself yet?
- Describe a scene from your day as if you were telling it to someone who wasn't there, then note what you felt in that moment.
Write by hand if you can. It slows you down, and that slowing gives the words time to come. If paper doesn't suit you, the notes app on your phone will do. What matters is having a place of your own.
How it changes the way you see your day
Writing regularly can change what you notice. When you know that tonight you'll write down three good things, you sometimes spot during the day the moment that will go in your journal. Your attention widens: it keeps seeing what's going wrong and also notices what's going well. A personal journal, on the other hand, shows you over time what keeps coming back: the same worries, the same people, the same moments of the week when you feel good. Rereading a few pages after a month or two is often more telling than rereading the day before.
A few precautions
Gratitude shouldn't become an obligation to feel fine. If your day was hard, you're allowed to write it the way it was, without hunting for the bright side at all costs. And if writing makes you go in circles, always going over the same pain without anything shifting, or if what you write worries you, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. A journal is a wellbeing tool, and it doesn't replace professional support.
Take it further with a program
The journal plays a big role in Inner Renaissance: each step offers writing exercises to do in it, to look at what you carry, what matters to you, and what you want to leave behind, and four guided meditations accompany steps 2 to 5.
Five weeks of writing exercises and guided meditations, at your own pace. Explore Inner Renaissance
