By Clove Morgan
You’re sitting at your desk, the pen fresh from the pack is balanced between your thumb and fingers, and in front of you is a brand-new journal. The price sticker has been peeled off, and your name is written on the inside, making it your own. Now what? It’s too basic to write about your day, maybe you didn’t do anything you would deem notable. Feelings can be too big to articulate into written words for the first time, and your mind is blank when you try to think of the drama in your day-to-day life. So… how do you start?
We’re so used to seeing videos and posts about journaling from supposed experts, the kind of people who have multi-colored pens, tape in an array of patterns, and inhumanly perfect handwriting. There is an unspoken pressure around journaling because what are you supposed to be writing about? When you haven’t done it before, it can be intimidating to open it and stain the first page with the ink of an unsure pen. Except, there aren’t any rules.
There are a million different ways to journal, and it all comes down to how your own unique mind works. When I was first getting into journaling, I realized that I had started entries and fizzled out somewhere along the way. I left several journals abandoned with blank pages left behind. The first confrontation is motivation. Ask yourself how you can keep yourself motivated. Buy a color that matches your style, stickers to create a collage, your favorite brand of pens, or a nice bookmark to keep track of your pages.
The next step is finding something to write. You open up the journal, and suddenly you can’t recall a single thought or feeling you’ve ever had. Once, I wrote my grocery list down in my journal next to a doodle of a heart with wings because I couldn’t think of anything. Since then, I’ve refined my approach and typically start with what I call “self-inventory”: a record of all of the basic traits and qualities that make you. Your name, age, pronouns, MBTI type, likes, and dislikes, consider the first page an introduction to a new friend.
If you need some further guidance, you could always turn to the internet for specific prompts that spark interest. If you’re more visual, doodle and draw in the margins or take up full pages. Printing out pictures or gluing flat slips of paper is also a great way to preserve memories without always having to write them out. Remember my grocery list? I followed it up with my receipt pasted on the next page to see if I actually got everything I said I would.
Journaling is meant to be a fun hobby, not something to shame yourself over if you can’t think of anything to say. There are truly no rules for an activity meant for your eyes only. It doesn’t need to be pristine or well-organized. Most of us don’t have perfect minds, so why should we expect it to look that way on paper? So crack open that new journal and treat it like a time capsule. Your future self will thank you for being authentically you–even if it's just a grocery list.
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