Use these journal prompts to motivate and inspire your daily life. In 2023, the best way to document your personal progress is through a journal. Any journal will work, whether its a fancy expensive journal, a mead journal, or just a random piece of paper. Writing down thoughts is the best way to ground yourself, and collect your ideas to manifest into reality. Journaling boosts your mental health by reducing stress and anxiety, and improving confidence and goal achievement. Using prompts gives you a guideline and produces better journaling than without a prompt. Journaling is a key concept that supports mental health, and is beneficial to anyone who decides to do it. The prompts listed below will provide initial ideas on how to fill your journal, and inspire your writing process.
Events Page
Saving documents from specific events is a great way to reminisce on memories that make you happy. Next time you go to a movie, save your ticket and paste it into your events page in your journal. Write a brief excerpt on who you went with, what you liked about the movie, etc. Next time you go to a concert or show, save your receipt and follow the same instructions. By the end of 2023, you’ll have a whole page or more of new activities you did throughout the year.
Favorite Quotes
Quotes can come from anywhere. Your quotes page can be filled at any time with any quote that resonates with you. Quotes can come from books, movies, poems, friends, etc. Keeping a log of quotes that inspire you or make you feel happy is important to refer back to. Writing down quotes is a way to understand your thought processes better and provide your own inspiration.
Yearly Goals
Writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them. Writing down things you want to achieve is a way to manifest an idea from your mind into a visible object. Thoughts are not tangible, so creating a way to visualize your thoughts makes the idea more achievable, which then motivates you to work toward that goal. Each year, writing down goals and resolutions is so important, because your mind is vast and easily distracted. Having a goal written down helps you focus. Write a goals and resolutions list each year and challenge yourself to check off every box.
Favorite Songs
Journal prompts that include music connect to human emotion. When you listen to a song you like, it triggers an emotion within you that makes you want to keep listening. This sense is similar to associating smells with specific periods of your life. Journaling your favorite songs each year allows you to track personal changes. Listening to songs you used to love will allow you to materialize a specific emotion. Keeping a log of what you’re listening to is a great way to see how you’ve grown throughout the year.
Manifestations
A manifestations list is a similar page to the yearly goals prompt, but has a specific purpose. Goals are usually logical, while wishes are more vast and imaginative. Manifestation is the act of using your mind to change the way you move in order to achieve a specific outcome. A manifestation list is a list of things you wish to happen within a certain amount of time. Write down your wildest dreams and wishes on this page, and test your abilities to manifest them.
Daily Gratitude
Expressing gratitude on a daily basis is incredibly important for mental health. Your brain has room for many thoughts, but some can crowd your headspace negatively. Expressing gratitude each day replaces a negative thought with a positive one. This clears your mind and removes distractions that might be inhibiting you from reaching a goal. Write at least 1 thing you are grateful for each day on your gratitude page.
Things to Learn More About
As humans, we are always learning and growing. The time that you stop learning is the time you stop living. Always strive to learn more about the world, relationships, specific topics, or whatever it is that interests you. Once again, writing things down makes you more focused on achieving it (which is why journaling is so important for personal growth). Write down the things you want to learn more about in 2023, and check them off as you go. At the end of the year, you’ll be able to see everything you learned and accomplished.
Self Love
Expressing love inward is another very important step in improving your mental health. If you love yourself, you are much more likely to radiate positive energy and inspire others to do the same. To help others, you must first help yourself with this journal prompt. Write one thing a day that you genuinely like about yourself. This can be a physical feature, a personality trait, talent, etc. This exercise boosts your confidence and will change the way you look at yourself. By the end of the year, you’ll have 365 reasons to love yourself written and you’ll grow as a person.
Health Plans/Tracker
Everyone says they’re going to workout and eat healthier every new year but somehow the goal always fades out. Health planning and tracking prompts are an effective way to stay on track and get closer to your health goals. Looking at your health page every day will allow you to see where you’ve been and where you’re headed. This is a way to document your progress, and have a visual representation of your hard work. This acts as a motivational tool to keep you hungry to reach your goals.
Stream of Consciousness
My English teacher in high school who worked as a former comedian in the 90’s introduced me to a writing method called stream of consciousness writing. This is a short daily time period where you don’t think, you just write. Set a timer for 90 seconds, put on some instrumental music and write whatever comes to your head. This journal prompt doesn’t have to make sense and it doesn’t have to be written neatly. You can even draw if you prefer or have writers block. This is a way to get things off of your mind that may be subconsciously clouding your brain.
Dear Blank
Write a letter to someone. This can be a letter to your future self, or someone else. Our minds can be clouded with things we should’ve said, want to say, or wish someone told us. Write these down. These thoughts are a great tool to further understand your subconscious and declutter your brain. These letters can be saved, destroyed, or sent to the recipient. Getting your thoughts written down is the most important step, whether someone reads it or not is up to you.
Daily Pits and Peaks
Every day is different. Writing down how your day went is a great way to get it off of your brain and get it onto paper. Writing down one “pit” and one “peak” everyday allows you to brush the emotions of the day off and help you sleep better. Write down your lowest point of the day and the highest point of the day every evening. There is no way to change the past, so dwelling on it is senseless. Write it down, close the journal, and move on.
Relationships Page
Logging your relationships is a great way to document your growth throughout a single year. Write down the relationships you have at the beginning of the year and why you’re grateful for them. At the end of the year, reflect on the list to see if anything has changed. People come and go in life, and outgrowing people is inevitable. Journaling about your personal relationships helps you understand them better and learn about connections. Celebrate the ones who are still in your life, and appreciate the ones you outgrew.
Inner Child Healing Page
Use this prompt to work on healing your inner child. Journal prompts to heal your inner child are proven to improve mental health. Find a picture of your younger self. Paste the photo into your journal and write to yourself as if the photo is your child. This exercise helps you heal your inner child and understand the root of some behaviors. This helps you to focus and heal yourself into being more free and moving forward from the past.
Travel Page
Traveling is a great way to learn more about yourself and the world around you. I recommend traveling to everyone because there is nothing better than seeing a new landscape or learning new things. Make it a goal to travel to a new place and write about it. When the memory is fresh in your head, write down your favorite parts of the trip, something funny that happened, something you got to see for the first time, etc.
Career Log
Use these journal prompts to track your career growth. If you work full time or own a business, your job takes up a large percentage of your life. Having a fulfilling career that you enjoy is important for mental health. If you change jobs, start a business, get a promotion, etc., write it down. At the end of the year, you’ll be able to see how much you’ve progressed in your career.
Writers Block
Writers block is common in journaling. Finding a quiet place without distractions will help you focus your mind, and if you don’t like silence, listen to some low instrumental music. Journaling in nature is also a great way to stimulate your brain and get the ideas flowing. If you’re having difficulty getting started, or don’t know what to write about, choose a prompt and let your brain do the work. Just put the pen to paper, and let yourself write. There are no wrong ideas, this journal is for you and only you.
These journal prompts are a great tool to get your 2023 journal started. These prompts will inspire you to write more entries, and improve your mental health. Any form of media will work, whether you use a journal, tablet, scrap paper, etc. Journal prompts produce better journaling and personal results. Turn your ideas and goals into a reality in 2023. Become the best version of yourself and become more grounded. Journal throughout the year, and at the end of 2023 you’ll see how much you’ve grown and accomplished.
Click here to download a printable planner for 2023!
