I promise. You don’t need to journal every day.
I certainly don’t.
When starting your journaling journey, it’s easy to think that you need to start with 3 morning pages every day or an essay on gratitudes every night. If that’s what feels energizing and exciting to you, by all means, try it out. But guess what? Most of us don’t have the time and energy to write a daily novel.
I’m here to tell you, baby steps for the win. Here’s why.
1) You Should Want (Not NEED) to Journal
There are some things you absolutely need to do to take care of yourself, whether you feel like it or not. You need to eat, sleep, and bathe. Everything else? Secondary. These secondary things should be fueled by compassion and self-love – not criticism and self-hatred.
I’m not going to pretend that this positive motivation is easy or innate. What I am saying is that secondary self-care should never be compulsory. Forcing yourself to do it every day is going to quickly kill any joy that comes from the task.
I truly understand the motivation behind wanting to journal about tough topics every day. If journaling makes you a better person, shouldn’t you do it all-day, everyday to maximize self-growth? You already know I’m going to tell you that logic is flawed. This logic has one underlying message I just can’t agree with. It assumes that you are “bad” and need to be fixed ASAP. See how this could kill your joy?
When we approach journaling as an exciting opportunity to guide change (instead of “fix” problems), we empower ourselves. That alone is positive growth. But, from that, we can also approach change with creativity and delight. Doesn’t that ultimately sound more productive?
You can totally journal every day and still be in this creative mindset. However, it is also 100% fine if you need to reduce your frequency and only write when it feels most supportive. This flexibility is freedom.
2) Flexibility is a Gift
I’ll say it again. Flexibility is freedom. When you tell yourself that you don’t need to journal every day, you need to find other things to guide when and how you write.
Personally, I don’t keep a schedule of when to write. I use a lot of internal cues to let me know when I need to put pen to paper. I try to feel out the type and intensity of my emotions along with what stage of emotional processing I am in. This is a level of mindfulness I never reached when planning my journaling sessions.
Now, I know this doesn’t work for everyone. A lot of people have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kinda brain. If that is you, fear not! Schedules are totally not a bad thing. Just make sure that you don’t keep yourself from writing simply because it wasn’t penciled in or force yourself to write on a much too busy day.
A lot of people think the only benefits of journaling come from the writing itself. But so much of journaling is about the compassion and intuition we gain from the scheduling process. Flexibility helps you forgive yourself. That is just as important as finding a good prompt.
3) The Research Says 2x is Good Enough
You don’t want to hear it from me? Fine. There are so many studies that say you cant benefit from writing as little as 15-20 minutes a day, 2-3 times a week. In fact, the professional who do suggest you write everyday promote that schedule because it ensures consistency, NOT because more writing means more benefit.
I’ve talked about consistency being crucial a lot. If daily journaling helps you do that, journal every day. But not everyone needs an identical daily routine! Journaling is absolutely not a one habit fits all kind of process. Just as some people are going to find a fluid, intuitive practice challenging, others are going to find a rigid schedule too demanding.
The only person who knows what will work for you is you
