My biggest tip for anyone new to journaling, from four years of consistent practice
I’ve seen a lot of Notes recently from people asking for tips on how to get started journaling. They inspired me to share my own biggest tip for beginners in this post—plus a few things I’ve done to make journaling consistently easier to do.
My hope is that it’ll help you start your new journaling practice off on the right foot. And if you’ve been trying to journal for a while but haven’t quite figured it out, it’ll help you rethink your approach so you can write more and feel better doing it.
Some context: I’ve been journaling since 2022. It’s actually been much longer than that, but 2022 is the year it shifted from something I did occasionally (read: rarely) to something I did almost every day. It’s also the year my relationship with journaling stopped being so emotionally volatile; I started feeling more curious than critical, more committed than not. I credit Julia Cameron’s morning pages for this shift.
My journaling practice has only grown since then. Now, I don’t always write Julia’s prescribed three pages first thing every morning. I don’t even always write in the morning—some days I write in the afternoon, other days not at all. I never feel bad about this; I always come back to the page eventually. Four years in, my journaling practice is the most flexible it’s ever been. It’s also the most helpful it’s ever been. Like a multi-use tool, I can use journaling anytime, anywhere for any reason and it’s always the right way (which is a big deal because I used to genuinely believe there was only one right way to do it, and I was always getting it wrong).
So, it’s from this place that I share my biggest tip for anyone new to journaling:
Make it as accessible as possible from the start.
The biggest mistake I made when I first started journaling was making it harder than it had to be. It took me four years of trial and error (and many years of beating myself up before that) to realize that the best journaling practice for me is the one I’ll actually do—and the one I’ll actually do is the one that’s super easy to show up for.
The same is probably true for you, too.
Here are a few things that have helped me make journaling easier to do:
Using the supplies I already have. When I was first starting out, the thought of “ruining” a beautiful, brand-new journal was enough to stop me from writing at all. So instead I wrote in the half-filled notebooks I had lying around first. It helped take the pressure off those early journaling sessions so I could actually write something.
Writing stream-of-conscious. I picked this up from Julia Cameron, and it’s still my preferred way of journaling. Instead of finding the perfect prompt to answer or the “right” thing to write about, I just write down whatever thoughts, feelings, and ideas come to mind. It helped me get around perfectionism and onto the page. Plus, it taught me to value my own voice; even my most random, petty, boring-seeming thoughts sometimes lead to a sparkling new discovery.
Writing whenever I can. Back in 2022, I loved the routine of writing my pages with my coffee every morning. But then life would happen, my routine would get interrupted, and I’d feel frustrated for the rest of the day. So I practiced journaling at different times throughout the day instead and learned that I don’t need a strict schedule to journal consistently. Actually, I write more consistently when I let myself be flexible about the when.
Writing less than I think I should. I always thought journaling meant writing pages and pages of deep insights every day. I’m not sure where I got this idea originally, but Julia Cameron’s three-page rule definitely added to the expectation. The truth is if I’d let a single line or paragraph or page be enough sooner, I would’ve been able to stick with my journaling practice way before 2022. Now I let myself write as much or as little as I want knowing it all adds up.
Following my curiosity. Early on, I thought about journaling like a habit I didn’t have the willpower to stick to. It lead to a lot of self-criticism and shame (also, not a lot of writing). Then I started asking new questions: What kind of writing sounds fun to me? What’s the silliest thing I could write about? What if I wrote upside down, in Spanish, or in different color pens? Curiosity made writing in my journal less rigid and more fun—and transformed how I think about my practice.
These things all made journaling feel more accessible, which made it easier to show up and write consistently, in ways that actually felt good to me. My journaling practice today is flexible, fluid, and rooted in curiosity. It’s not high stakes. It’s not stuffy. It’s designed to meet me where I am, even on my worst days.
If you’re ready to start journaling, don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Instead, try making it as accessible and easy as possible. Lower your expectations. Rig the game in your favor. Break the rules, change them, or better yet, create new ones that make you actually want to show up and write without judgment.
The easier journaling is for you to do, the more likely you are to do it—and actually stick with it long enough to make it a practice worth having.