11.5.2025 | I can’t journal

tips on keeping and finishing a journal from a mental performance coach

I believe there’s this urge most people feel at some point in their life to go out and buy a journal. Maybe because someone they admire raves about the practice or their therapist said to do so to get through a tough time. Might be they feel inspired to write once and never pick it back up until years later, going through another challenge in life and desperate for some introspective answers. The last one was me and has been me a handful of times. I can’t tell you how many journals I own, collecting dust and cockled from storage, that have a few pages of writing or sketches in the beginning and the rest of the journal weighed down by blank pages. Those blank pages are so daunting, mocking me because of my failure to keep a habit, again and again.

A journal is an interesting artifact for a human to have. One might argue it is essential too. A new journal is an unwritten book. Ask anyone to write a book, they may feel inspired for a few days. Then the initial inspiration to write eventually fades and dwindles into a chore, something they forget to do once, and then again, until it’s forgotten. The number of blank pages overwhelms us as humans, especially in today’s world with our brains hardwired for immediate gratification. Creating - bringing anything from the mind into the real world - takes time and effort. There are so many other things one can do with their time than fill the pages of a journal in a world buzzing with distractions.

It remains human nature to create and express to connect and a journal often feels like a safe and relatively inexpensive way to do so - a gateway into other forms of self-expression. However, if you drop a journal and think you can come back to it, you won’t. It’s gone stale. The version of yourself that started the journal is no longer there and who you are now is less likely to pick up where you left off because of two major reasons: 1. the unfinished journal represents an unresolved mistrust you have with yourself (you let yourself down once, you’ll likely do it again) and 2. it’s human tendency to always strive to move forward, grow - not go backwards.

Give yourself grace. If you’ve never successfully kept a journal and finished, it’s time to rework your approach. You don’t trust yourself enough to have a journal yet and that’s normal. Humans do best with routine. Just like eating meals, your body is used to eating at the same time every day. Writing can work the same way. You must prioritize the act as a habit first in order to keep doing it. The following are some different approaches that might help you stay consistent in building a journal habit:

• Journal on sheets of printer paper, loose leaf paper, a notepad, or single pages. Set a number to get to. Once you reach that number, go buy a journal and keep going. 

• Time yourself, start small and gradually get longer to a time that works for you.

• Give yourself a page minimum. A daily three pages is recommended. 

• Write a word of the day, call it an entry.

• Write one sentence that sums up the most significant thing that happened that day.

Choose to journal at the same time every day and commit to a minimum to begin. Identify your bare minimum. Not someone else’s.

As humans, we must see results to validate our work and then we’re more likely to continue. The reason why you’re journaling must be clear to you and the way you journal must be structured towards satisfying the intention behind the action. In anything creative, you’re going to feel lost at first - random, ugly, a copycat, bland, boring - but you have to keep going to understand why it is that you wanted to begin. Your answer usually begins to emerge through your journal pages, assuming you write enough of them. After some time, your body gets used to it, there’s clarity - a breakthrough - and then you begin to develop this irritation when you don’t do your bare minimum. It becomes an essential part of your day, your life. Just like eating.

Everyone has a writing voice. Write enough times, yours will begin to emerge. This is your writing style, perspective. It’s at this point you may invest in a new journal. Go pick a good one, scribble out the first page with nothing in mind just to “ruin” it and get over a perfectionist mindset, and keep doing your thing. Your reason for keeping a journal may morph based on what you need and may gradually start looking different over time. 

Journal pages reflect back to you your perspective through which you view your life from. It’s from these pages you’ll learn about yourself as well as be able to make changes to be a better version of yourself. Your words matter, your life matters. Every day that comes and goes is one that will never be again and you got to live a version of it no one else in this universe has or ever will. Document it. Write alternative endings to your life events. Tell the pages your crazy dreams and adventures. Write.

xx Sky