Ever since I can remember my mind has been a chaos of thoughts. While practicing meditation on a daily basis is a great and effective tool to help me deal with my overthinking, I also noticed the benefits of evening journaling.
Once I started journaling down my thoughts right before going to bed, I noticed it helped me tremendously to ease my chaotic mind.
The reason I chose to start journaling in the evening instead of in the morning is because I like to reflect the day (and because I am a terrible snoozer). By writing down my thoughts in a journal I got to see a pattern of things I keep stumbling upon again and again. This gave me the opportunity to tackle my daily hurdles and start taking action.
Now, before I am tempted to tire you with al my irrational daily thoughts, let me help you by giving you some useful insights in what kind of things I write in my journal each evening:
What am I thankful for today?
In this category I mention at least 3 things I’m thankful for. When I’ve had the most horrible day, I find it hard to stay positive in my thoughts. What I’ve learned however, is that when you really want to you can always find at least 3 things to be happy about. It can be the friendly smile from that stranger down the street, a lovely walk through nature or simply the fact that you finally succeeded to not over-bake the lasagna (yes this one has been on my list, don’t judge me please).
Goal Tracking
Here I write down how I have attributed to my short or long term goals today. Also I like to write down how I will be working on my goals in the upcoming days or weeks, to make sure they stay active in the back of my mind throughout the day. After a while I will also reassess my goals and adjust them.
Planning the next day
Another crucial part of my evening journaling routine is writing down my planning for the next day. This helps me a lot to stay focused and gives me a spark of motivation to actually go do the things I told myself I would do (although that 5’o clock morning run was maybe a bit too ambitious).
Worries and solutions
Last but not least, I write down the stuff I worry about and immediately come up with solutions. In order to keep these haunting worries out of my head I make myself write down what would be possible solutions, or in what way will I deal with them in the unlikely case the worst case scenario does happen. This helps me feel a lot calmer and often allows me to fall asleep with much more ease.