How Journaling Has Changed My Life

Both personally and professionally, in ten minutes a day.

You hear about it all the time. It is in vogue, to be well-read. Grateful. Dreamy. And to record the evidence. Chances are, someone has recommended it to you, and you’ve dismissed the idea. Or perhaps you’ve filled half a notebook with entries, before falling out of the habit.

I started my first journal at nine years old, after my mother suffered an ectopic pregnancy. Having dreamed up an attachment to ‘Penelope’, the sister whose existence I hadn’t known of until it was over, I addressed my entries to her. My intention was to send the pages up in smoke once I had used them all, so that she might read them in Heaven (where to start dissecting this? We weren’t religious, she wasn’t literate, and the ramblings of a preteen about who they were crushing on each week would surely, only have rendered her afterlife punitive otherwise). I can still recall the notebook, with its thick cream pages and faux-leather binding. I kept it close for many years, though never wrote enough to cast it into that fire.

Secondary school came with adjustments, to more homework assignments and, for me, thrice-weekly training sessions with my athletics club. I came away from journaling, until the injury that put me out of sport and sent my mental health spiraling. Two years of trial and, mostly, error. Then I had a therapist suggest that I keep a ‘positive things’ diary. This wasn’t so much a gratitude journal, as a challenge to my depression-fueled ‘selective attention’ on negative experiences. Every day, I was to make note of one not-terrible event – as small as a stranger holding open a door for me – with the idea being that, eventually, this would retrain my focus. Happily, it was effective, and it wasn’t until several years later that I felt the need to journal again.

April, two thousand and twenty-three. I had fallen pregnant after three doctors’ prognoses that I never would due to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Things were already difficult. My partner was between visas and unable to spend much time in Cyprus. My own, pending visa renewal meant that I was unable to leave. We were both twenty-three and afraid, given those doctors’ warnings, that this baby could be our only one. Amid the noise, I was drawn towards quiet corners and documentation. I needed to remember this, I felt, exactly as it had happened. My journaling took the form of a video diary, then. I described in teary detail how my pregnancy felt and how I felt about my pregnancy, at every turn until the final one. Those entries were painful to watch back but, ultimately, gave me the courage to confront pregnancy loss in my novel, Thirty-Eight Days of Rain. I dedicated that to ‘J’, Jonah, just as I had my first journal to Penelope.

"I needed to remember this, I felt, exactly as it had happened."

This October, inspired by prolific memoirist Annie Ernaux, I began to journal again. Another turbulent period (thankfully, passed now) for reflection. Sadly, I don’t think it is much in our nature to pause and take stock when things are good. We tend only to ask questions – how did I get here and what am I doing? – when we are unsatisfied with the answers. This time, a resolution. I want my journal to extend beyond one stretch of unhappiness, to encompass art and love and music and friendship, and be something that I can look back on in years to come. I know, I know. We have all said and heard this before. But in six weeks of persevering, I have seen profound shifts.

"I don't think it is much in our nature to pause and take stock when things are good. We tend only to ask questions – how did I get here and what am I doing? – when we are unsatisfied with the answers."

Firstly, as mentioned in a previous article (How To Write Through Tough Times), I found journaling to be salvatory, writing-wise, during my tough start to autumn. I lacked the brain space for anything more creative or longform, but couldn’t bear to put my pen down altogether. Keeping an account of my thoughts and experiences was enough to carry me through, until life felt somewhat calm again.

As I use a notebook for my journaling, it has also reconnected me with writing by hand. The joy! I’d forgotten. In the early stages, I do some book planning on paper, but all my ‘writing writing’ on a laptop. It’s faster. It’s cleaner. I’m able to go back and make changes easily. This is all very reasonable. But I have rediscovered, through journaling, the pleasures of taking it slower. Crossing out my mistakes. Leaving my words in a raw, unedited state rather than agonizing until they flow perfectly. The contents of a journal should be imperfect, if its writer is honest. As messy to look at as they were to live.

"Amazing how it can deter you from reckless behavior, this knowledge of your conscience awaiting you at the end of a page."

On that note, another benefit. I have referred to a history of poor mental health and the challenging times in which I commenced this latest journal. The collision of trauma and uncertainty can, in anyone, provoke rash responses. A few weeks ago, I found myself standing on the precipice of one such response, feeling the breeze in my hair and flexing my toes. Then I realized that whatever I did, I would have to confess it to my journal later. Amazing how it can deter you from reckless behavior, this knowledge of your conscience awaiting you at the end of a page. ‘I don’t want to write that I made a bad choice, so I’m not going to do it . . .’ Whatever works.

"There is something about the ten, quiet minutes I spend on the latter each day, that makes me feel as though I am getting to the core of myself."

In the same way, knowing that I intend to write about my daily life – even if only for myself – has made me more observant of it. I find myself noticing things, consciously, that I didn’t before. Sights and sounds that surround me off the page. Thoughts that reoccur on it, forming some patterns that need addressing and others that simply interest me. I love writing books. I intend to keep writing them until the day I die, with journaling a side-practice that I believe is already making me better at it. But there is something about the ten, quiet minutes I spend on the latter each day, that makes me feel as though I am getting to the core of myself. I don’t always like what I see there, but that is half the point.

From Sunday 1 December 2024, paid subscribers will be able to read extracts from my journal every month. Subscribe now to get these straight to your inbox.