When you’re a mom, one day tumbles onto the next in a blur of seemingly never-ending activities. The moment you wake up, you already have a running mental list of all the things you need to accomplish that day. By the end of the week, you feel that you’ve accomplished everything and nothing. Because you’ve been so busy with the everyday busyness of work and home, you hardly have time to do anything about your big goals. You thus feel like you’re on a treadmill, running out of breath without going nowhere.
Well, mom, it might be time for you to start journaling.
When you were younger, you might have kept a diary of your thoughts, detailing the events of the day, both the highs and the lows. When you got older, you might have started thinking that diaries are for the young or maybe you just didn’t have time anymore to collect your thoughts at the end of the day. More and more studies, however, are pointing towards the positive impact that journaling could have on an individual’s overall well-being.
Here are some of the surprising benefits of journaling which you might want to keep in mind:
#1: Journaling helps you organize your thoughts. This is certainly welcome news for the harried mom. By writing down what you thought about a certain event or circumstance, you make sense of the world around you. More importantly, you gain a better understanding of yourself. You might come to realize, for example, that you might be spending too much time on a task or project which would not contribute to your long-terms goals. Or you might also be encouraged to flesh out ideas for a dream project as you are lost in your thoughts.
#2: Journaling helps you process your emotions. Journaling gives you an outlet to process your emotions. By writing down your anger, sadness, or frustration, you give yourself an avenue to release pent-up emotions. This would not only reduce stress, it will also help you feel better. Take it one step further. Ask yourself why you got mad or sad in the first place. In this way, you’ll be more aware of yourself and your limits.
#3: Journaling makes you a better communicator. Not only will writing encourage you to organize your thoughts, it will also make you a better speaker. As you write, you vocalize the thoughts inside your head. As you write, you also try out words or phrases that would sound better. Sooner or later, this practice would translate into how you speak, making you a better speaker and communicator.
#4: Journaling gets your creative juices flowing. Nothing is more challenging than a blank page. When you’re writing, you’re actually speaking to yourself. When you give your mind permission to let loose, you might be surprised at the ideas that you come up with. Because nobody else will see what you’re writing, you can go totally out of the box when it comes to finding solutions to a persistent problem, resolving disagreements with someone you love, charting your professional career, or brainstorming for a home project.
Indeed, blank pages from a notebook served as the inspiration for many artists and thinkers over the past two centuries. Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway – these are but some of the individuals who have used the Moleskine notebook to draw sketches, jot down notes, write up stories, or scribble an idea or two. A simple black rectangle with rounded corners, an elastic page-holder, and an internal expandable pocket, it was produced by a small French bookbinder that supplied the stationery shops of Paris for over a century. It was only in 1997 that Moleskine was created as a brand.
Today, Moleskine is not only a favorite among creative professionals, it is also the journal of choice among many individuals around the world who believe that writing thoughts on paper is still one of the best things to do at the end of every day.
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