Why Journal? My Story and Non-Obvious Journaling Benefits.

The first important question before diving deep into journaling is simple: 

Why journal? 

And there are a lot of reasons.

And it is essential to know them. 

Because if you know in great detail what is possible with journaling in combination with ThinkGym method, only then you will pay attention to acquiring a journaling habit and practicing. 

Before answering why to journal, let me quickly share my story. 

I first discovered the power of journaling more than 7-8 years ago. 

And I remembered somewhere 3 or 4 years ago, 

I stopped doing any journaling …

…for a few months because, as I said to myself:

I had no time for it.

Life became even more complicated during that time.

So I felt lost and stressed…

Back then, I had a difficult time in my life, a lot of anxiety, and was running in circles. 

I had no one around me who could listen to me or give me some outside advice. 

I was feeling stuck, angry at myself and life. 

I was feeling a need to change. 

It was to such a degree that I even visited a local doctor to ask what to do.

Not even looking at any symptoms, he said: 

“You have 2 options: 

start controlling your thoughts and mental state, 

or I can prescribe you some tranquilizers.”

No way!, I told myself I would put those chemicals 💊into my body.

And immediately, I remembered my forgotten journaling habit…

All this made me instinctively take a notebook I had near my hand and express all my thoughts, emotions, and anxiety I had on paper. 

I didn’t know what I was doing. 

I just felt it was the right thing to do. I wrote a few pages for one hour and went to sleep. 

When I woke up, I had a new perspective on my situation, my mind was clear, and I felt calmer. 

I looked at my writings and realized that part of my emotions and hardships are now on paper. 

They are no longer in my head. 

This made me realize a few essential things about writing my thoughts down: 

• I am not my emotions and thoughts. I can quickly put them on paper to abstract from them.
• I can observe these emotions and thoughts cool-headed when I write them down. I could understand them better after reviewing them on paper.
• If I repeat this process, use new writing techniques, and journal regularly, I can better understand myself. I would be able to come up with ideas on how to solve life challenges in the best ways. 

After my first experience, I got a lot of intrinsic motivation and realized I could change my life.

Thanks, G-d I took journaling really seriously from that point in time.

I can tell you that returning to journaling helped me take my life back under control and get rid of worries and stress…

I started writing more regularly and trying different writing formats. 

I found other exercises and tools.

Kept doing what worked and dropped what did not. 

I figured out that keeping a journal makes my life more prosperous and profound. 

More importantly, I started seeing different results in my daily life. 

When I reflect on my past journals, I feel very proud of myself for how far I have gone relative to where I was when starting each of these journals. 

As I discovered later, many successful people like Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Bill Gates, Nicola Tesla, and many others kept journals. 

Success leaves clues.