Kathy Hamilton I’ve always loved the idea of keeping a diary. However, for a variety of reasons I’ve never been able to stick to the goal of writing daily, or even weekly! So I decided the change that and to try a 30-day journal challenge. Here’s how it went.
What Inspired My 30 Day Journal Challenge?
I’d been thinking about keeping a diary to track life during lock-down but for a variety of reasons had never actually committed to it. One of the main stumbling blocks I have always had when it comes to writing anything is the amount of pressure I put on myself to make it perfect. Even keeping a diary led to me getting annoyed if each entry wasn’t full of philosophical musings. But at the same time, trying to write something profound each day was a sure-fire way to giving up quickly.
So when I stumbled across this YouTube video in the dying days of May I was inspired. Jo made it seem so simple- all I needed was a pen and a notebook and to simply….start. The challenge was to keep going, not to worry about what I was writing.
Setting Some Guidelines
- Write at least one word every day for thirty days.
- Write the first thing that comes to mind
- No pressure to write anything special
Getting Started
Feeling an initial burst of enthusiasm to kick start this 30-day journal challenge definitely helped me get started. In the first few days, I filled multiple pages and felt really inspired to write. Then, of course, life happened! One day I was so busy that when I fell into bed exhausted, I almost forgot to write. Sticking to my pledge I wrote a single sentence which went something like: ‘wow, too tired to write. This is all you’re getting from me today!”
In hindsight, this was my first success! In previous attempts to journal, failing to write reams of words each day would have counted as a fail. But ultimately this turned out to be the most freeing element of the whole challenge. Learning that showing up was enough, that I didn’t have to be ‘at my best’ every day was so freeing.
Half the Battle
As the days wore on, I really started to feel my groove. I tried to hold onto the lessons I learned in the first days. Sometimes inspiration would flow and I’d have a lot to write about. Other entries were simply accounts of how my day went, how I felt and what I hoped to achieve the next day. Leaning into this flow was nice and I started to look forward to my evening ritual of sitting down to write at the end of each day.
Half the battle, I discovered was just to keep going. There were some days I was tired and just wanted to curl up in bed. But the accountability of the 30-day journal challenge kept me determined. I wanted to be able to sit back at the end of the month and know that I’d showed up for myself. I think this is such a big part of forming a habit. There’s always a point where initial enthusiasm wears off. It’s natural. For me, the key was in understanding why I wanted to write in the first place.
So, what did I learn from my 30 Day Journal Challenge?
Writing Daily is Therapeutic:
When I first started my 30 day journal challenge I had no idea how much I’d come to enjoy the process of writing daily. It soon became a simple pleasure in my day. I found a favourite pen, I enjoyed the feel of writing by hand instead of a keyboard. Having this daily ritual was like having a dedicated moment of peace in each day.
It’s important to take the rough with the smooth:
Let’s be real, there have been a lot of highs and lows during 2020, for all of us. But this challenge gave me a space to offload a lot of that mental weight. It was a place I could show up with no fear of judgement and just say what was on my mind. But it is also nice to have a record of all the positives too. For some reason, these simple joys seem to get lost in the maelstrom of our memory too easily.
Something is better than nothing:
I am definitely a perfectionist. But instead of harnessing this into productivity it more often than not causes procrastination. I avoid doing something I can’t do perfectly instead of just trying. This 30 day journal challenge made me confront my perfectionism and realise that more often than not, some really is better than nothing.
The Promises you Make to Yourself are Important:
Before this challenge I sort of scoffed at the idea of ‘self care’ or making dedicated time for yourself. But the more I acknowledged the importance of completing the challenge the more I learned that doing something exclusively for yourself is important too. I loved having a moment in my day that was just for me. Perhaps that was the biggest lesson of all.
