How to Start Keeping a Journal with a 5-Day Journal Challenge

*This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

I’ve been keeping a journal of one kind or another for most of my life. I still have my first diary, in fact. It’s funny and a bit nostalgic to open it once and a while to see what my 8-year-old brain was focused on back then. It turns out, it isn’t too far from what I focus on now. I was writing about my thoughts and feelings (and boys!) and putting it out there for the universe to do something with. I have always considered myself a writer, but journaling isn’t just for writers. It’s for anyone trying to make sense of their world. And as an adult, journaling has helped me create new worlds for myself.

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently about journaling and they told me they’ve always had trouble maintaining a journal practice. They said they had trouble keeping it up to date. I wondered where the pressure to “keep it up to date” came from, so I asked. The response she gave made me laugh. She said, “I know what happened. I don’t need to write it down.”

There in lies the problem with keeping a journal: we’ve somehow conditioned ourselves to believe that a journal is supposed to be written like an explorer’s log. My friend said she didn’t feel the need to write down what she did that day because it’s what she does everyday. I realized that there was a time when I had treated my journals like daily logs too, but it’s been a long time since I stopped writing down my activity list and started writing down my thoughts.

Keeping a Journal Can Feel Daunting

The problem with writing down our thoughts, of course, is that someone might read them. The idea that someone might pick up my journal and read my unhinged thoughts or experience what it’s like to be in my head while I move through some decision I’m trying to make used to scare me. Now it makes me laugh. Honestly, if you picked up my journal and started reading it, I’d probably feel a sense of relief. It would save me from having to try to explain to you why I am the way I am. You’d be doing both of us a favour.

But to most people, the idea of someone reading their inner most thoughts is like being stripped naked in the town square. We forget, of course, that underneath those clothes, everyone else in the town square is naked too, just like we forget people have their own unhinged thoughts. Not writing them down and working through them doesn’t mean people don’t have them. So when I catch myself being judgey about my own thoughts, I remind myself that at least I’m doing something about it by writing it down and working through it. Most people just write down what they had for supper last night.

It took me about 4 seconds after my conversation with my friend to decide to create a journal challenge. And it took me another 20 minutes to create it.

How to Start Keeping a Journal Right Now

The 5-Day Journal Challenge invites you to slow down, reflect, and write your way back to yourself. It’s about more than keeping a journal, though. It’s a great way to start keeping one because it’s simple, accessible, and full of possibility. Part of the reason keeping a journal can feel daunting (besides being exposed when someone finds and reads it, of course) is the perception that you must write in your journal on a daily basis. That’s not true. I come to my journal practice when I need it. I don’t feel the need to write down everything all the time. A journal practice is about knowing you have a process for working through your thoughts, not just documenting.

We’ve been taught by movies and television that journals lead to external things like clues or insights about family drama and secrets, but a journal is just a place that creates safe space for you to figure your stuff out. So what’s holding you back from getting started?

Daily Prompts to Get You Thinking

The 5-Day Journal Challenge works like this: each day you’ll get one prompt via email, asking you to reflect on the stories that shape your identity, your values, and your creativity. These are the kinds of questions that help you find language for your life. You don’t need a journaling practice already in place. This is how you begin one. And you don’t need a new notebook to do this. I know you’re going to want to put off starting a journaling practice until you can get a new notebook, but you can just start. If you want to buy a new notebook, though, I do love these.

Sometimes I don’t even write in my journal. Sometimes, I’ll write on a piece of printer paper, or I’ll write it down my thoughts on a notes app on my phone. I love a new notebook as much as the next person, but I’m always keenly aware of the things that prevent me from starting something different. Waiting for the right time, circumstance, or fancy new notebook is definitely the kind of thing that would stop me from getting started on a keeping a journal.

It’s not the “keeping” of the physical journal we’re worried about. It’s the “keeping up the action” we’re focusing on.

Getting to the Root of the Problem

Journaling can be wildly impactful if you’re honest with yourself about what you want and need. Pretending to be someone or something you’re not while you’re trying to work some stuff out on paper isn’t going to get you very far. Think of it as therapy. I’ve spent years writing down my thoughts just to pick them apart and question whether or not they were true. Sometimes the thoughts are true and sometimes they are not. But I won’t know for sure if I don’t write the truth of what I think.

There’s no wrong way to journal. If you’re getting something out of documenting your day, that’s great. But I can assure you that you’ll get even more out of it if you look at that page and question things such as, why you always follow the same routine in the morning. You might find that you’re worried you’ll forget something. What happens if you forget something? Where does the fear of being forgetful come from? There’s no grading or gold stars here. Just you, your pen, and the quiet clarity that comes from undercovering what you’re really saying.

If you’re keen on keeping a journal, but don’t know where to start, start here. Join the 5-Day Journal Challenge below and I’ll start sending you prompts right away. You’re obviously curious about journaling because you’ve gotten to the end of this article, so don’t put it off any longer. You don’t have to tell anyone. It will be our little secret.