Journaling

Like everybody else, our family has been pretty much locked down for several weeks for the sake of several family members who are high risk.  Journaling is one of the best investments that you can make for your mental health during this unprecedented time. So go ahead, find an unused notebook or journal you have around the house and get writing with these fun April journal prompts!

April Journal Prompts

1. It’s April Fool’s Day! Do you participate in any fun pranks?
2. The first week of April is Library Week – It’s a great time to visit your local library and enjoy a few hours of quiet time. What is your favorite thing about the library?
3. What goals do you have for April?
4. It is also National Walking Week – write about your favorite places to walk in your area.
5. What is your favorite form of exercise?
6. What are some things you have been doing lately to stay healthy?
7. Celebrate ‘No Housework Day’ with a day off from cleaning and chores. What can you do instead?
8. It’s time to catch up on your Resolutions for the year. How have they been going?
9. For Garden Week – write about what you love about gardening.
10. What are your favorite gardens to visit?
11. Do you have something you always love planting?
12. Today is Easter – how do you plan to celebrate it?
13. Write about some of your memories of Easters past.
14. Are you ready for tax day tomorrow?
15. Celebrate World Art Day by writing about your favorite form of art.
16. What do you love about Spring?
17. What is something you look forward to every Spring?
18. Name something you can do for yourself this Spring?
19. It’s a great day to organize your files – write a list of what needs to be organized today.
20. What are some other areas of your life that need to be organized?
21. Do something for your business today and write about it.
22. It’s Earth Day! What are some ways you can celebrate?
23. It’s ‘Take Your Daughter to Work’ Day. Have you ever participated? Why or why not?
24. For Arbor Day, write a story about planting trees.
25. What are 3 things you want to get done before April is over?
26. What are some plans you have for next month?
27. Express your gratitude today for everything good that happened this month.
28. What are 10 things that inspire you?
29. What goals did you get done this month?
30. It’s time for the end of month review – How did April go?

Bonus April Journal Prompts

1. April is ‘National Garden Month’. Write a short story about gardening.
2. What are your favorite flowers?
3. List your favorite plants.
4. Do you prefer indoor or outdoor plants?
5. What is something you like to plant every year?
6. It’s ‘Stress Awareness Month’ – what is your stress level like today?
7. How do you personally deal with stress?
8. What are 3 other healthy ways you can handle your own stress?
9. How do you help your kids with stress?
10. What do you feel is the root cause of your stress?
11. For ‘National Pet Month’ talk about the pets you have.
12. Do you remember any pets from your childhood?
13. What is an animal you wish you could adopt?
14. If you could make any wild animal a pet, what would it be?
15. What are some of your favorite things about having pets?
16. Celebrate ‘National Humor Month’ by writing down some of your favorite jokes.
17. List your favorite funny shows.
18. List your favorite funny movies.
19. Who is a comedian you would love to see live?
20. Who or what always makes you laugh?

Need some more journaling inspiration?  Check out some of my previous journaling posts!

How to Start a Worry Journal

How to Start Journaling for Stress Relief

A Beginner’s Guide to Simple Bullet Journals 

How a Bullet Journal Helps Mental Health 

5 Easy Ways to Practice Gratitude Every Day

Finding Peace During Hard Times

Here’s a list of fun March journal prompts to help you stay consistent with your journaling practice.  In Florida, March is a beautiful time of year and I like to try to get outside as much as I can to visit some of our beautiful natural parks before the long hot summer hits.

March Journal Prompts

1. What is on your March bucket list?
2. What are your business goals for the month.
3. What does happiness mean to you
4. What are you excited about this month?
5. Are you happy with where you are in your career?
6. How do you go about meal planning.
7. What method do you use for your to-do lists?
8. What are some ways to relax when you’re stressed?
9. What is your favorite comfort food?
10. What are your favorite self-care activities for the month?
11. Spring is coming up soon – what are you excited about?
12. It’s Plant a Flower Day – what are your favorites?
13. Do you track your goals quarterly?
14. Describe how you deal with your difficult emotions.
15. What are 3 things you want to accomplish this month.
16. What do you feel is holding you back lately.
17. March 17^th is St. Patrick’s Day – do you celebrate this holiday?
18. How do you feel your social life is going lately?
19. What do you wish you could say to someone?
20. On the First Day of Spring – what do you like to do to celebrate?
21. What do you think makes you a good person?
22. What do you want people to remember about you?
23. What do you hope your kids say about you?
24. When it comes to productivity, what are your strengths and weaknesses?
25. What is your dream business?
26. What will get you closer to your dream business?
27. What is something you are grateful for
28. How do you prefer to express your creativity?
29. It’s close to the end of the first quarter – are you on track?
30. The 30^th is ‘Take a Walk in the Park’ day. Where can you go walking?
31. Describe how the end of your first quarter is going.

Bonus March Journal Prompts

1. What are some healthy meals you love making for your family?
2. Find some new healthy lunch ideas for your kids.
3. March is Family Nutrition Month – how can you improve your family’s nutrition?
4. Do you grow any vegetables or herbs at home?
5. List 5 ways to add more vegetables and/or fruits to your family meals.
6. How has nutrition changed from when you were a kid.
7. How important is nutrition to you?
8. In what ways do you find a healthy balance in your life?
9. What do you want your kids to learn about nutrition?
10. What do you feel are the pros and cons of focusing on proper nutrition.
11. What is your favorite craft to do alone.
12. What craft do you love to do with your kids.
13. What is your first memory of making crafts?
14. Do you enjoy homemade birthday or holiday gifts?
15. Spend the day working on your favorite creative project, then journal about it.
16. Make a craft for St. Patrick’s Day.
17. What are some crafts your kids enjoy doing?
18. How do you feel about wine and paint events
19. Sketch how you feel right now in your journal.
20. Draw a picture of what March looks like to you.

Worries are an unfortunate fact of life. Whether it’s your everyday life or bigger worries such as health and financial woes, it seems like there’s always something to worry about. However, you don’t have to let your worries get the best of you and become overwhelming. Start a worry journal and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the benefits to your overall health and wellbeing.

What is a Worry Journal?

A worry journal is a private place where you can write down all of your worries. When used correctly, a worry journal can help to get the negative thoughts out of your head. When you worry too much, it can often lead to more anxiety, stress and depression. If we keep them bottled up, it can lead to a range of mental and physical issues.

How to Write Your Worries Down

The first step is to begin writing down all the worries you have at the moment. You’ll notice that as you write each thing down that’s worrying you, it will help to release the power that it has over you. This step in the process only takes a few minutes.

The next step is to begin to evaluate your worries. Ask yourself some questions to determine why you have these worries, and what you think could happen. Once you have defined your worries, you can go to work on reducing them. Here’s some questions that you can ask yourself in your journal:

• Is there any evidence to support my worries?How
• What is the worst thing that could happen?
• Could I look at the situation in a different way?
• What evidence do I have that could argue against the worry?

What Should I Journal Before Bed?

If your goal is to sleep better, experts suggestion writing in your journal about three hours before you go to bed. This will give you plenty of time to both list your worries and then analyze them. It can takes some time to process everything and you may not feel better right away. But after a few hours, your brain will feel more relaxed and it will be easier to get to sleep.

The Mental Health Benefits of Keeping a Worry Journal

When you have a lot on your mind, it can become very overwhelming. Writing it down is the best way to release them from your mind. Many times we’re not aware that we are bottling things up and over time, the things that we’ve been holding in start to come out in unhealthy ways.

Here’s some health benefits you may experience by writing in a worry journal before bed.

• You’ll sleep better.
• Journaling is a positive outlet that can help with weight struggles.
• Reduce anxiety
• Improved immune system
• Boosting happiness levels

And once you’ve written down your worries and analyzed them, create a gratitude list. Gratitude can help to increase happiness levels and thinking about what you’re grateful for is a great way to fall asleep.

Journaling Tips for Beginners

Have a dedicated space. Set aside a small space with your journal, pens and whatever helps you to feel focused and relaxed. Ideally, this should be away from the noise going on in the rest of the house!

Try morning pages. While we’ve been discussing journaling before bed, morning pages can also help you set the tone for the day. This is how morning pages work:

• You must do your morning pages immediately upon waking up.
• You write until you’ve completed three pages in your notebook, which is about 750 words.
• Morning pages must be handwritten.

You can write about whatever comes to mind. For the first half-page or page, you  may find that you’re filling the page with random thoughts, but if you stick with it,  you’ll likely end up with some gems in the rest of your writing. It’s all about being patient and committed to the process.

Keep it simple. While’s it’s important to analyze your worries, it’s also important to take care not to go into a lot of depth with them. Spend just a few minutes writing about each worry that you have.

Write about your day. This can help with stress because you’re not bottling things up. It’s a great way to free up all of the tension, anger and frustration that you might be experiencing.

List your fears and concerns. If you can, try to organize them into chronological order. Focus on the worries that are affecting you right now. Many times our worries are focused on the future. Just think about what’s troubling you today.

Create to do lists. If you worry about having too much to do, creating a to-do list can really help. Every night write down the main three things you want to accomplish the next day.

Begin with your most pressing worry. It’s always a good idea to start with the most pressing worry. As you focus on your most pressing worry, it will help you to better deal with the smaller ones. Not only that, you’ll experience relief faster if you start with your most pressing concerns.

Don’t judge yourself. One thing that you may struggle with is judging yourself harshly. You’re not weak. Your worry journal is a safe place to vent your worries and concerns. If you censor yourself, you won’t get the full benefits of the journal.

Identify ways to look at your worries differently. For every fear or worry that you’ve written down, try to identify at least one way that you could could view the situation differently. If you tend to fear the worst, try thinking about something positive that could happen from the situation.

Bring a journal everywhere with you. It doesn’t have to be your worry journal, but having a smaller journal will allow you to write in your journal as things come up, like when you’re having problems at work or are nervous about an upcoming appointment.

The majority of the time, you’ll find many of the things you worry about often resolve themselves in time. They may not be as bad as we perceive them to be. By questioning and analyzing your worries, you’ll be taking away their power and seeing for them for what they really are, rather than what they could be.

These are some of the best ways to journal in order to take your power back from worries. By facing your worries head on and gaining a better understanding of them, it can really help to reduce the worry and help you live a more intentional and less stressful life.

If you follow the method above, you’ll be surprised by how much better you feel. A worry journal is a very simple, yet very effective tool for reducing anxiety and preventing excessive worry.

Did you set a resolution to start journaling this year but have fallen behind already? No worries, I’ve created some February Journal Prompts for you to begin anew. New Year’s Resolutions might seem a little silly, but they really are a great way to narrow down your focus to one or two main goals. They are not meant to be something miraculous and life changing (though they can be), but to take advantage of the new year with a fresh start. I personally like to refer to them as “intentions.” And best of all when you create intentions, you can start over any time of the year.

Maybe you want to lose weight this year, give up soda, start doing yoga, or stop a bad habit like overeating. When it comes to creating your New Year’s Resolutions, using a journal is one of the best tools at your disposal. It not only helps you decide on the resolutions, but helps to track your progress along the way.

What Do You Want to Accomplish This Year?

Begin by writing down everything you would like to accomplish this year. This might end up being a long list, which is totally fine. You are just starting with any idea you have in your head before you make your final decisions. Think of big things and small things, even if you don’t know that they will end up being a resolution. Consider your bad habits, something you want to implement, a goal you want to achieve, healthier lifestyle habits, a change in your routine, a place you want to visit, or a problem you want to solve.

What Did You Struggle With Last Year?

To add to your list of possibilities, write down anything you feel like you lacked or fell behind in the previous year. This can help you figure out where you want your focus to be, such as if you struggled with your finances this past year, you might want to look for a new job opportunity or work on your business more.

Write Your Thoughts

Go through and highlight or make a check next to anything that really speaks to you or you believe would make a positive impact in your life. Consider something you can do for the entire year, and doing that will help to make you happy or healthier, or just change your life in a positive way.

February Journal Prompts for 2020

1. What is on your February bucket list?
2. Do you have plans for Superbowl Sunday?
3. What are your February goals?
4. List 3 things you can change this month to reach your goals?
5. What are some fun things you want to do this month?
6. What makes you feel joy?
7. It’s Send a Card to a Friend Day – who would you love to send a card to?
8. What are you doing this month for self-care?
9. Are you still on track with your resolutions?
10. What part of your goals have changed?
11. What is something about your personal life you want to improve?
12. If you were granted one wish, what would you ask for?
13. What is your favorite Valentine’s Day date of the past?
14. How did you meet your significant other?
15. If you could spend a weekend doing anything, what would it be?
16. Add 5 more things to your bucket list.
17. What is a random act of kindness you can do today?
18. How has your mindset been lately?
19. How can you improve your mindset?
20. Are you an athletic person?
21. What is something you can do today to help improve your life?
22. If you were an animal, what would you be?
23. If you could go on any cruise, where would you go?
24. Imagine you could immediately go anywhere in the world – where would you want to go?
25. If you could sit on a bench with anyone, who would it be?
26. Write a letter to your pet – what would you say?
27. What is an embarrassing memory from your school years?
28. What is a good memory from your school years?
29. This year is a leap year – do you have any memories from previous leap days?
30. What are you grateful for this month?

Grab the Journal Printable!

Being more grateful for the things in your life is one of the best ways to practice self care. A regular gratitude practice can help to center you, reduce anxious feelings, feel better about yourself and even help those around you to feel better about yourself. If you don’t have an intentional gratitude practice in your life, here’s 5 easy ways to practice gratitude daily.

Keep it Simple!

Write down some mantras that personally speak to you, and then say them to yourself each day. This is a great way to feel more positive every day. You can even write them on sticky notes and put them in your office or around the house where you can see them. Or keep a small notebook with you to read them out loud when you feel like you need a reminder.

Here’s some easy gratitude mantras and quotes to get you started:

Gratitude Mantras

1. I’m happy and grateful for the life I have today.
2. I’m grateful for the people I have in my life today.
3. I’m grateful for this body that I have, no matter how I might be feeling today.
4. I’m grateful for a roof over my head.
5. I’m grateful that God is working for my greater good.
6. I’m grateful for a new day and for another chance to make my life better
7. I’m grateful to have enough to eat today, many do not have this privilege.
8. I’m thankful for community – friends, family, neighbors, church, clients and mentors
9. I’m grateful for music that lifts me and speaks to my heart
10. I’m grateful to watch the sun rise and the stars come out.

Gratitude Quotes

1. “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
 – Oprah Winfrey
2. Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” – Amy Collette
3. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
4. “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” – Karl Barth
5. “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” – Cynthia Ozick
6. “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson
7. The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.” – Mary Davis
8. “I’ve had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9. “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” – Epictetus
10. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” – Thornton Wilder

Tell Someone Personally

Do you feel gratitude toward a family member, friend or someone else who has been a good influence in your life, but never got around to expressing it? Then tell them! There’s no better way to express your gratitude to someone than to tell them directly with a smile. This small exchange can be a wonderful boost for both of you.

Take a Daily Picture of Something You’re Grateful For

It doesn’t have to be perfect, filtered or photoshopped. Just look for the little things around you that make you smile or make your life easier. This is an easy practice that doesn’t involve writing, and will help you to find something good every day. You might even try creating a positive Instagram account (keep it private, if you wish) dedicated to things you’re grateful for. And follow only positive, encouraging accounts.

Use Your Planner

If you don’t want to start a separate journal, try using your daily planner.Most planners have space for daily notes, or if you have a space that you’re not using, repurpose it to write down one thing you’re grateful for, instead of dwelling on the negative circumstances.

Create a Gratitude Journal

This is a time tested way to express gratitude in your life. It can be as simple as one or two sentences in your journal about what you’re grateful for, or you can set a goal of 3-5 things every day that you want to be grateful for.

Need some planner inspiration? Here’s some gratitude journals I’ve created on Amazon!

If you don’t have a regular journaling routine September is a great month to start. If you live in a colder climate, you’re probably starting to spend more time indoors. You might be thinking about summer memories and trying to capture them before you forget about them.

Why You Should Have a Journaling Routine

Keeping a journal may sound simple, but to turn it into a habit you should create a daily routine about it. The details of your routine are up to you, but first you should understand your how and why.

Be consistent. Like any other intentional practices in your life, consistency is key. If you only journal a couple of times a month or whenever the mood strikes you, you won’t reap the maximum benefit.

Try to write in your journal every day. It helps to set aside a special place and time. This will help to create a mindset that it’s time for journaling. And the more you do it, the more you’ll the wonderful mental health benefits from it.

Regular routines build habits. Whenever you try to add something new to your routine, it can be hard to remember to do it at first. You’re probably so used to your regular routine that adding something new takes some getting used to.

Adding journaling to your routine helps it to become a habit. Simply schedule journaling at a certain time of the day, morning or evening. After awhile, it will become a habit and you won’t even have to think about it.

Journaling has amazing health benefits. By having a journaling routine, you encourage all those amazing journaling benefits. It helps with your clarity and mindset, relieves anxiety, helps with stress, and can even improve your physical health.

September Journal Prompts

Here’s some journaling prompts for September to get you started. If you’d like a printable copy to keep at your desk, just sign up below!

1. What plans do you have for September?
2. Today is Labor Day in the US – what are your plans?
3. It’s time for those final summer vacations. What is your best summer vacation memory?
4. What is a memorable thing you did this summer?
5. Make a short list of what you would like to do before September is over.
6. Today is ‘Read a Book Day’ – write about your favorite book, or what you are reading right now.
7. Describe your favorite way to spend a day off.
8. It’s Grandparents Day – share a memory of your grandparents.
9. Do something nice for someone else today, then come back and journal about it.
10. School is back soon – how are you getting your kids ready?
11. What are some of your own favorite back to school memories?
12. Talk about work and productivity for the month of September.
13. It’s Friday the 13^th! Do you enjoy scary movies? Write about the ones you have experienced.
14. A great way to have a healthy September is with more exercise. Pick a new form of exercise to try out, and write about it.
15. Write down a list of healthy options you want to add to your regular diet.
16. What was a memorable day this summer?
17. Choose one new way to practice self-care, then journal it.
18. It is National Indoor Plant Week – why not journal about picking a plant and caring for it?
19. What is on your mind today?
20. The 3^rd quarter is almost over – write about how it has gone so far and what you got accomplished.
21. Today is World Gratitude Day – fill up a page with everything you are grateful for.
22. Do you plan on planting anything for the fall season?
23. Today is the first day of Fall. What are you looking forward to?
24. Go outside and enjoy the sunshine, then journal about what you did.
25. Do the opposite today; find some fun indoor activities to write about.
26. Write about one person you are grateful to have in your life.
27. Go through your summer bucket list and see if there is anything you can complete, then write about it.
28. What are your favorite summer and fall flowers?
29. Write about some things you want to get done in the 4^th quarter.
30. Write an overview of your month.