Journaling for a month: 3 things I learnt

Recently I've been trying to take a new approach to life. I've grown bored of the negativity that seems to surround our daily activities and the constant drive for more. I want to live a life that is full of gratitude and positivity and move away from negativity and commercialisation. Over the last year I've made small and gradual changes to my life which have started to add up to big results. But I'll admit it's not always easy and for every positive day I have I still get those days when I want to curl up and ignore the world.

Like most bloggers I have a well founded relationship with Pinterest and time after time posts on Bullets Journals appear in my feed. I don't think anyone can deny that Bullet Journals are beautiful and quite frankly I envy anyone who can keep one. But after a brief experience of Bullet Journaling I realised pretty quickly that it wasn't for me. My reason? I'm just too much of a perfectionist and trying to match up to everyone's Pinterest worthy Bullet Journals didn't do anything for me, except waste my time and my patience! 

So, what did work? Well I did what anyone chasing a simple lifestyle does. I simplified it. I brought myself a basic notebook and a purple pen and I just wrote what I felt like, until I noticed a pattern. After a month these were the main things I found: 

 1. I surprised myself. The things I thought I would want to write I just didn't and the things I thought would never work for me actually did.  I noticed that when I wrote I was always setting myself goals, tasks to achieve or challenges to take on.  I wouldn't have thought it but actually having weekly goals and aspirations really helped me to keep focussed on what I wanted in life and who I wanted to become. That's not to say I always met them but just having them made me feel good about life.

2. I became more positive. I could never really get to grips with the idea of journaling for gratitude. Anyone else tried naming 3 things a day they are grateful for? Yeah mine all consisted of food options as well. That was until I began thinking of gratitude more as daily observations. They didn't need to be huge things, sometimes it was just noticing the birds singing or the blue sky. As the days went on I found myself stopping in the moment to take a step back and really appreciate things. I'd make a mental note to write it in my journal that evening. After a week or two I found it easy to reel off a list of things I was greatful for. 

3.  A journal doesn't have to be neat. Ultimately your journal needs to work for you. It took me some time to be comfortable with a messy journal but to make sense of the messy world we live in, your journal should be a creative space where you can scribble, cross out and be free to wander around your own thoughts and ideas. Bullet journals might look great but if they don't work for you then don't try and make them.