Journaling about small, meaningful achievements has helped me in reducing stress. Learn how (plus: quick journal prompts to help you get started)!
Today (October 10) is World Mental Health Day, and I couldn't spend this date without sharing with you some notes about wellness and self-care.
We all know that 2020 and 2021 haven’t been easy years at all! It’s been, in many different ways, a challenging time for all of us. We had to learn new coping mechanisms to try to make this period a little less stressful.
Journaling has been widely mentioned as an effective self-care practice for dealing with challenging times. Some of the benefits of journaling include better management of anxiety, stress, and depression, since writing down our thoughts helps us identify and work through emotions and behaviors, for instance.
Journaling has, indeed, personally helped me analyze my own thoughts, recognizing patterns and triggers so that I can reflect on better ways to deal with them.
One of the journaling practices that have helped me cope with stress is simply writing down, at the end of the month, what I'd call a "gratitude list".
In this post, I'm going to help you identify those small, meaningful things so that you can add them to your own list. Take a look!
These are my personal views based on my own experience. That does not include specialized thoughts about this practice. The best advice as well as any form of treatment for mental disorders must always come from a mental health professional.
How to keep a "gratitude list"
At the end of each month, make a list of a couple of achievements from the last few weeks. And by achievements, I really don’t mean remarkable accomplishments, record-breaking milestones, or any sort of that stuff.
I mean small but meaningful things that somehow helped you at any moment. Maybe you actually don’t even remember or consider them meaningful right now—and that’s when the best part begins!
More than a journaling practice, it’s an exercise of self-awareness, self-compassion, and gratitude. When we start trying to remember past details that we can add to the list, we give them a new meaning.
With this exercise, we naturally push ourselves to consider events from a different perspective. We can finally notice those things from a better angle, transforming previously unnoticed achievements into positive, rewarding ones.
More than a journaling practice, it’s an exercise of self-awareness, self-compassion, and gratitude.
Keep it simple!
So, what can you add to your list of achievements? It could be literally anything that brings you comfort, good memories, or a feeling of gratitude. Some examples could be:
Something that made you smile or laugh 😄;
Something that you got done ✅;
Something that you’ve been postponing for a while and you finally made some progress on 🙌;
Something that made you feel more relaxed 💆♀️;
A “cuteness overload” moment 😍;
Something nice someone said or wrote to you 🤗;
A person that you’ve recently met and enjoyed so 🤝;
A health care treatment that has made you feel better 😌;
An appointment that has brought you some comfort or has led to good results 👍;
An answer you were waiting for and finally received ✉️;
A gift you gave someone (or received from someone) 🎁;
Positive feedback 🙂;
Something you've started to actually plan about 🗒.
And the list goes on! Anything that’s personally, as Marie Kondo would say, “sparked joy” should be included on your list!
Take my September list entries as an example. Last month, some things felt relieving for me:
I made some progress on a personal project I was putting off for ages;
I removed my wisdom teeth, which were annoying me for a while;
I lost some pounds by keeping a healthier diet;
I received my payment for a commission that I'd been working on in the past months;
I was interviewed in English (I like when that happens because since it's not my native language it feels challenging and it motivates me to keep practicing it).
How it helps me manage stress
Making this list of small, meaningful achievements helps me get back into the zone of gratitude. Doing this exercise makes me notice forgotten details that turn out to be important facts for my self-growth and wellbeing.
It’s so easy to fall into that trap of thinking we haven’t made progress on our goals and plans. This journaling practice, though, defies these thoughts and makes them less significant when compared to all the nice, brighter things that have been a part of our journey.
I do hope this journaling tip helps you make progress towards your self-care routine as well! :)
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it with someone who might need to read this.
Do you have any other tips for stress relief? Share them in the comments below!
Love,
Ana Clara.
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