To guide your mindful moments, here are seven journal prompts that will ease you through each journaling session in a week
Research shows that mindful practices help improve one’s well-being and manage emotions. Among these practices include journaling, which you can think of as a healthy outlet to release your bottled up feelings, from the positive to the negative. Referred to as positive affect journaling in the context of intervention, it can help mitigate mental distress and improve quality of life, especially if used to inspire moments of self-awareness and expressions of gratitude. If you’re new to positive affect journaling and need the extra help to make it a habit, below are seven journal prompts we like to use to inspire self-reflection and introspection for each day of the week.
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Prompts for self-reflection
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These four prompts are all about getting you to delve deeper into what makes you tick. This level of self-awareness is important in learning to healthily manage your emotions and ultimately set the kind of boundaries you need to cut off sources of stress and negativity. This is also an opportunity to look more closely at your patterns of behavior so that you know which things in your life are beneficial to you. The goal is self-optimization, but before then, take the small steps needed to simply know yourself on a deeper level.
- What makes you feel inspired?
- The situations that normally upset me are __. That’s because __.
- Name at least five characteristics about yourself that you wouldn’t change.
- Think about the goals you haven’t accomplished. What do you think is holding you back?
Prompts for gratitude
It’s equally important to express gratitude so that you don’t dwell on the things that bring you down. While it’s important to know what to change, it’s equally important to know what to sustain. Make it a part of your habit to express gratitude to the things in your life that make you happy and bring you joy. From the people around you to the places you find yourself in, there’s always something positive to take from it—even if it’s only a learning experience.
- Name the five things that made you happy today.
- What are the qualities among your friends that you admire the most?
- Name the thing you look forward to visiting or doing the most each day.
All that said, don’t limit yourself to what’s included in these lists. Consider them only as stepping stones to welcoming a new healthy habit in your day-to-day life. For daily prompts, you can opt for health and fitness apps that provide guided journaling sessions, or printed out wellness journals so that you can physically jot down your feelings. Trust us—it’s cathartic.
