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Good habits, bad habits, weird habits; everyone has habits. They’re not always good, they’re not always bad, and they’re not always weird, but most people have a very diverse way of living life with their habits in mind. The problem with habits is that they’re complex. They’re difficult to break when they’re bad, and they’re difficult to create when they’re not. Everyone is looking for a way to eliminate their bad habits, and others are looking to introduce good habits into their lives. Believe it or not, a journal can help you track your habits, so you can change them.
Try Different Journaling
No one type of journaling is going to help you with every aspect of your life. You should try to create different journals. You might want to create a food journal to help you understand why you’re eating what you eat, how you’re moving your body, and where your emotions fall during each different moment in your diet. It’s a great way to track what you eat and how you feel, and that’s the first step to change.
If your bad habits are emotional eating, not working out, and not caring for your body, a food journal can help. Keep track of what you eat, how you feel, and what you’re doing to make better choices. You’ll be able to review this information over time to find common ground and fix the bad habits you’re making.
Be More Mindful
When you work on mindful journaling, you work on improving your life as a whole. When it comes to picking up good habits and breaking bad ones, this is where you should pay close attention. Let’s say you bite your nails. It’s a bad habit. It’s dirty, it’s germ-filled, and it’s unsanitary. However, you do it. You know you want to stop. You try to stop, yet you find yourself absentmindedly biting your nails sometimes.
Why? When you write down your feelings when you’re biting your nails, you’re making yourself more aware of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Perhaps you bite your nails when you focus too hard on something or when you feel stressed. When you practice being mindful using your journal, you might find it is easier to change that habit by also being mindful in the moment.
Track Your Progress
Your journal is for your feelings, but it might also be for tracking your progress. Perhaps you can create a list of your goals and the good habits you’d like to create. Is one of them to make better decisions to be happier every day? Write it down. When you write it down, you see it as a goal in progress. You can create smaller goals to help you achieve your bigger goals each day.
For example, if you are working on being happier and making the conscious decision to be happy each day, make it a goal to write down three things you’re happy about or grateful for each day in your gratitude journal. You can review all the things you’re happy about and grateful for each day or week, and you can use that to help you create better habits.
Make Notes of Your Feelings
Your feelings are not always easily understandable. Perhaps you think you know how you feel but your mind is so confused about it, and you’re not sure how you really feel. Write it down. Your jumbled thoughts might not make sense in your mind, but it might make more sense when you see it on paper. The purpose here is to read your journal and find common ground in your feelings and your thoughts. You’ll begin to notice patterns.
Patterns are so important in journaling. When you notice patterns relating to your habits, you become more aware of yourself. It helps you make better decisions, and it helps you change your habits for the better. Patterns and trends in your thoughts are key, even if you’re not sure what they are when you’re working on them.
One thing you should know about keeping a journal is yours is different than anyone else’s. You’re not going to find your journal works for you’re the same way as someone else, and that’s all right. Changing your habits is not easy, but it can be done. It’s made simpler when you work on your habits through journaling.
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