Week 16 – Journaling: The Habit That Keeps My Head (and Heart) on Straight
This week I’m circling back to a habit that’s quietly helped me stay sane, creative, and grounded through some of life’s biggest curve balls, Journaling. Not the fluffy kind. Not the “dear diary” version. I’m talking about real, raw, brain dump journaling. The kind that clears the clutter, helps me process life, and often unlocks the most unexpected solutions.
When I was running my café, journaling was the thing that kept me from combusting. Long hours, a million moving parts, people relying on me, it was chaos with a side of avo on toast. I would sit with a coffee, scribble down the mess in my head, and walk away clearer, calmer, and often with a brilliant new idea I hadn’t seen five minutes earlier. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t perfect. But it worked.
Now, as I’m stepping into this next chapter, building a new business, writing every week, reinventing myself one habit at a time, I am reintroducing journaling with fresh eyes and a full heart. This isn’t just about reflection. It’s about reclaiming clarity, creativity, and calm. And reminding myself that no matter how full life gets, there’s always space to come back to me.
It’s not woo woo, Richard Branson, carries a notebook everywhere. He credits journaling for some of his best business moves. Dan Martell, entrepreneur, coach, author of Buy Back Your Time, uses journaling daily to stay focused, release stress, and stay aligned. I started this because of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way this book has inspired me and millions of creatives to reclaim their spark with just three handwritten pages a day.
The 5AM Club swears by it, its one of the 3 core implementations for creating a successful day. robin Sharma and his following swear by it. If you journal in the first hour of your day, your brain lights up and starts firing in all the right directions. I like to write in the evenings just before I go to bed when the day is done and I can finally hear myself think.
Over the last few years I have really delved int the science behind things and yes I have researched journaling as well, it has been shown to reduce anxiety, improve memory, support better sleep, increase problem solving skills, and helps regulate emotions. It’s the one thing that gives me clarity when things go south.
So this week, I’m making journaling a daily ritual again. Nothing fancy just me, a notebook, and a few minutes of honesty. Some days I may write two sentences. Other days, I’ll fill pages. But I’m showing up. Because when I make space for my thoughts, everything else in my life starts to make more sense.
This isn’t about perfection or doing it ‘right.’ It’s about presence. It’s about release. It’s about checking in with the one person I often forget to listen to myself.
The tip is to start where you are. Write what you feel. Let that be enough.
