By Dr. Sharon Ufberg
8 min read
Journal writing is an easy, flexible, and heart-opening activity to add to your morning and/or evening routine. And you need to give yourself permission to write whatever comes to mind without judgement or revision. The journaling exercise is for your eyes only so feel free to express yourself!
It’s fun to pick out a special notebook and start by writing one of the starter prompts below on the top of each page. Now you have your writing journal ready to go for several weeks!
Before you jump out of bed in the morning, or hit the snooze button, try grabbing a pen and your journal instead of your phone and take 5 minutes to write down whatever comes up for you. It can be as little or as much writing as appears that day. Adding some morning journaling is a very productive way to set yourself up for a good day. It helps you start the day in the right mindset and gives you the momentum to move forward having spent a few moments getting grounded before the outside world enters your thoughts. Little wins in the morning lead to big wins throughout your day!
The first few hours of your waking day are supposedly a most precious time. They are known to be the hours where your mind is most readily available to do thoughtful work and your brain and energy levels are at their highest. Allowing a few minutes for journaling during this quality time of day may be an opportunity for you to let your greatest insights emerge.
Start right, end right. Your evening routine doesn’t need to be long but it is helpful to create some intentionality into the evening rituals you choose to do each night, too. Just before bed as you are winding down your day, pull out your journal and try writing down a few words that shift your thoughts to gratitude.
Your evening journal time can just be a collection of short lists too! It can be as simple as just writing down the three things you am grateful for, something good that happened that day, something nice you did for someone else, or something nice someone did for you.
Here are a list of 20 writing prompts you can use to spark your imagination and inspire your writing time:
- I remember how it felt to…
- I want to tell you…
- My favorite childhood memory is…
- One place where I love to spend time is…
- Yesterday I ate…
- I woke up and remember my dream as…
- Five things I used to do that I don’t do anymore…
- Five things I would do if I had all the time and money in the world…
- Five things I still want to do or experience...
- Write about a place you call home…
- What’s one thing you never did and regret…
- Write about the beginning of something and how it ended…
- Write about a time you took a risk and it paid off...
- What I am dying to write about is…
- What’s right in front of you…
- 5 things I saw…
- 7 things I did…
- My favorite travel memory is…
- 2 wishes I have are…
- If I could see into my future, I would want to see…
Everyone is different, so create the writing schedule that works the best for you. Creating the daily habit of journaling is what works, not what time you journal or how long an entry you write each day. We all live our lives in 24 hour segments. How you use those 24 hours determines what your life looks like now and what it will become. If you learn to master your day, you’ll learn how to master your weeks, months, years, and life!
Momentum is created with the intentional decisions you make each day. You are what you repeatedly do. Take some time to assess what your daily schedule looks like and how you may want to modify it to help you achieve the life you envision. Successful people spend time planning and imagining the life they want and the person they want to become. Living intentionally each day toward a higher vision sets you in motion. You can maximize each day and make enormous progress toward a bigger and better future by creating daily rituals and habits that move your life forward.
Why not grab a journal and give it a try?
Dr. Sharon Ufberg is a senior health practitioner, having spent over 30 years in private chiropractic practice, licensed in both California and New York. During her practice tenure in New York City, she held the title of Adjunct Professor at Beth Israel Medical Center’s Continuum Center for Health and Healing in New York City. Dr. Ufberg has created and teaches online personal growth courses and privately coaches individuals as the senior consultant for Good Advice Works and Borrowed Wisdom, companies she created to assist people to turn their dreams into reality. As a published writer, Ufberg interviews and blogs for Thrive Global and The Huffington Post, focusing special attention to women, personal health and wellness and philanthropic initiatives. She hosts her own NPR radio segment, Force of Nature, on WAMC’s 51% show.
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