Top 5 Reasons Why Men Should Keep a Daily Journal
While we might think that our thoughts and feelings are infallible and concrete, we are 100% wrong to believe this. Every day we are growing older and taking in new information about our surroundings and experiences. This living experience also transcribes to your mental and emotional well-being. What I am getting at is, if you think you are who you will always be, you are telling yourself a big fat lie that will ultimately stunt your growth (mental and emotional growth).
While keeping a journal is often viewed as a feminine activity, this is certainly not the case Plus, the vast majority of historical events are accounted for through journals of men. I am not suggesting you create memory nor am I saying make a best-selling novel of your life. I am saying, better yourself with writing and keeping a journal of everything you go through.
Here are the top 5 reasons why all men should keep a daily journal
1. Start Small To Start Experiencing Compounded Gains
Like getting huge gains at the gym or learning a new skill, journal keeping is a long term investment that gets better the longer you do it. Don’t think you will be covering a whole page on your first day. First, you need to buy the right kind of journal – make sure you like how it feels when you have it in your hand. This will make you a lot more likely to maintain and continue your journaling. You are least likely to dismiss the activity if you spent good money on one hundred blank pages. Get a book that you can not rip the pages out of and start small. Write about small things. You can even start writing about your grocery list or your fitness routine.
Point being, you just have to get in the habit of using and carrying the book daily. Through this you will eventually learn the value it adds to your life. Crawl before you walk, as they say. Let journaling be a natural extension of your life, not a forced activity. Therefore, you should start small today to start experiencing compounded gains.
2. Helps Track Your Goals Better
It might be small, but if you are having trouble starting to journal, I would suggest starting with a grocery list. From there, you can get your creative juices flowing and start writing about more deeper issues and thoughts. This is less about you just cataloging your life and more about building a dependence on the act of writing your journal. Find reasons to use it. You will see over time that your recording skills and memory will improve. Biologically, we are not designed with strong long-term memory skills. We have always developed tools to assist us with this. Writing stuff down is one of those tools. Yes, even in the day and age of technology, pen and paper have their place helping us improve our lives. Logging your daily plans and tasking yourself helps you keep you on a path of your design
3. How You Feel is Important.
Aside from tasking, journaling is a good way for you to develop stronger emotional awareness. Even those of us that are knuckle draggers can learn from this. Journaling becomes a quick, easy, and light task for you that can still benefit you even if you are void of emotions. For those of us that recognize the strength in exercising control over their emotions, journals will help you greatly. Keeping a log of your day’s activities and your feelings at the time are a way to spot what triggers you. Being able to review what you wrote with a fresh and neutral perspective is a wonderful thing to be able to access. This gives you the ability to review yourself objectively and separate emotions and actions from actual events. How we feel is not always accurate with what occurs. This personal growth is significant if you plan to develop long term relationships and have long term career aspirations.
For more on why journaling helps your emotional state, I would recommend reading the following study by The University of Rochester.
4. Track Financial Success
Sure, you can use whatever app you want to track your money, but writing down things tends to develop a stronger connection with your logical thinking and emotional thinking. The use of money tends to fall in both of these areas. You can use a journal to track your spending as well as write down amounts and values for future bills and monthly budgets. If this is not a strong skill in your life, journaling your spending habits will help you stay honest with yourself and will prove a better record than your various credit cards and financial institutions. The purpose of a journal is to allow you to be an objective judge of your own life. This can help you grow to understand how your habits are a part of your financial success. Keeping a financial journal will make you mindful of your spending and you will certainly benefit greatly.
5. Your Mental Health Will Thank You
As we know, everyone has problems and stressors and these can cause a lack of focus and clarity. If you lack strong attention skills, to begin with, then you are already behind the curve and need to start journaling ASAP. Tracking your daily feelings and doing so in an honest light is a good way to understand your needs. You are essentially giving your self permission to seek help with every page you fill with distressing feelings and damning details. If you are not in a position to seek professional help or have your reasons for not seeing a professional, then a journal will at least provide you an opportunity to track your mental well-being so you may, objectively, review at a later time. A log is a log. It’s the information gathered over time. It does not judge you it does not shame you. You give your information away for free to companies online every day. At least with a journal, you can directly benefit from the data you are generating if you choose to do so.
For more on how to reduce anxiety and get more clarity, read our 8 Coping Strategies to Reduce Anxiety for Men here.
