Sometimes the best way to find out who you are is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else.
Keeping a journal provides us with a necessary outlet for our thoughts and feelings. It reminds us that we must validate and recognize them as important enough to write and review. By putting them on paper, we have allowed ourselves to catalog and process them and then publish them, freeing ourselves up for more opportunities.
What they think of you is none of your business.
The purpose of a magazine is best served when it is written for you and only you. The most effective way to journal is to write freely, knowing that no one else will see you unless you invite them to. Many times we write for a perceived audience. We consider our words too carefully, weighing them down on being judged by others or out of fear of hurting someone’s feelings. If we want to truly know ourselves, we must write frankly, openly and without fear of retaliation. Here are 100 journaling pointers to help you on your way to writing your truth. No apologies! So, grab a pen and get to work. Start typing and don’t stop until there is nothing left. The story of your life, as you see it, is waiting to be told.
1. Define your personal style.
2. Describe a time when you were brave.
3. What does it mean to you to be a friend?
4. I wish everyone had ___ …
5. Your idea of a perfect day.
6. In what way do you consider yourself peculiar?
7. How do you feel about loneliness?
8. Your favorite childhood memory.
9. Someone whose life is better because they met you? Why?
10. Ten things you appreciate the most.
11. Describe LOVE using the five senses.
12. Someone you keep in your life for their sake, not yours.
13. Something you’ve been avoiding.
14. A goal you’ve been putting off.
15. Who is someone you look up to? Why?
16. Someone who affected you deeply.
17. I secretly wish ___ …
18. Your greatest fear and how to conquer it.
19. Who do you need to forgive? Why?
20. Your wish list.
21. Something about yourself that you are most proud of.
22. What role do you play in your family?
23. Something seemingly out of reach.
24. How do you feel that others perceive you?
25. What is your favorite color and why?
“Defining myself, rather than being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.” ~ Carol Mosely-Braun
26. The three things you are most grateful for today.
27. Write a letter to your parents, spouse, and children.
28. Describe what it means to you to feel safe.
29. Three words to describe your life.
30. Something that you have always felt was missing in your life.
31. Do you feel adorable?
32. Some things you would like to hear right now.
33. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?
34. What lessons did you learn from your regrets?
35. Describe the house of your dreams.
36. Your most embarrassing moment.
37. His proudest moment.
38. Describe a failure that turned out to be a blessing.
39. Your interpretation of a recent dream.
40. Something you want people to know about you.
41. Something you don’t want people to know about you.
42. What is your favorite song and why?
43. Someone who is not in your life as often as you would like and why.
44. What characteristics do you judge most harshly in others?
45. What characteristics do you judge most harshly in yourself?
46. Describe a time when you felt brave.
47. Your most satisfying victory.
48. Your most painful defeat.
49. Write a letter to someone who hurt you that you will never send. Just to get it out of your heart and mind.
50. How do you want to be remembered after your death?
“It is a pathetic moment in the history of the human condition when the outside world tells us who and what we are, and we begin to believe it ourselves. Then, bent down by the weight of negativity, we began to shrivel up on the outside ”. ~ Joan Chittiser
51. How would your life be different if you felt comfortable being yourself at all times?
52. Describe ‘a beginning’ that struck you.
53. Describe a situation in which it was “the end” of something for you.
54. What do you think is the purpose of your life?
55. Describe the nicest thing you have ever done for someone.
56. Something you did to someone that you have trouble forgiving yourself for.
57. Describe how you felt when you visited your grandparents’ house as a child.
58. A gift you gave to someone you were most proud of.
59. Write a letter that you would like to read at your funeral.
60. What does forgiveness mean to you?
61. What kind of person makes you feel inferior?
62. Three characteristics that you would like to have.
63. What are some of the things you can do this week that you can be proud of?
64. Describe a time when you made someone’s day.
65. I wish people ___ …
66. Do you take some things for granted and why?
67. What would be the title of your biography and why?
68. Some things that you noticed today that were missing all the time?
69. Which room in your house best reflects who you are and why?
70. When you give, do you finally expect something in return?
71. Is your destiny shaped by choice or by chance? Explain.
72. If you could go back and do it again, at what age would you like to start?
73. List five non-materialistic things that you would like to have right now.
74. What area of your life needs more growth and how are you working on that?
75. Something you could invent to make the world a better place.
‘Self confidence is so relaxing. There is no tension or stress when you have confidence in yourself. Our lack of self-confidence comes from trying to be someone we are not. ‘ ~ Anne Wilson Schaef
76. What things about yourself do you feel that someone who has just met you would like?
77. Something you have been meaning to do and have been putting off. Why?
78. In what period do you think you would have felt most comfortable living?
79. Who is your hero and why?
80. If money was not a problem, what gifts would you give to three people in your life?
81. Describe your sense of humor.
82. Describe the process you go through when you plan to buy something expensive for yourself.
83. Write a letter to God.
84. What is your definition of family?
85. What do you feel most guilty about? Why haven’t you been able to forgive yourself?
86. Write a letter to your past.
87. What emotion has dominated your life lately?
88. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be and why?
89. What positive and life-affirming aspects do you carry with you every day?
90. Try writing a poem!
91. Write a fairy tale starring you.
92. Once you acted without thinking and it has an impact on you and others.
93. What would happen if you were granted three wishes?
94. A goal you are working towards and your progress so far.
95. What things in your life do you really enjoy? tolerate?
96. What are your top three priorities?
97. Something in your past that you need to let go of.
98. Some things you do every day that you don’t enjoy and why? Can they be reevaluated, delegated or eliminated?
99. What do you think of commitment in general?
100. Write a heartfelt letter to someone you need to forgive. Even if you are yourself.
Accept everything about you, I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end. No apologies. No regrets. ‘~ Carl Moustakas