Trying to Avoid Treating Journaling as a Requirement
As I've written about previously, I'm a big fan of writing and journaling in physical books. The feeling of putting pen to paper and turning your thoughts into something tangible does a lot to help you realize just how much you have to say about yourself and the world around you. And, as I've also written about, don't over complicate it. Otherwise you'll just create roadblocks that stop you from writing. A process that I subscribed to for the last few months mainly involved two books: a smaller book in the form of a Field Notes for writing out daily tasks and general thoughts, and a larger book for end-of-day journaling and habit tracking. While it was working well for a while, it created a difficult challenge for myself: needing to write something down every day. One page or one line was dedicated to every day of the month, and not writing anything one day left an ugly gap in the pages that makes the rest of the month feel like a waste of time. A feeling that would snowball, eventually turning that sense of apathy into a reality, leaving me with more and more gaps.
So, as I continue in developing my physical writing process, a pass-time that I truly enjoy and desire to keep at, I'm left to add another principle to that process: keep rules, as well as the medium, simple. Don't force strict guidelines onto yourself that will only discourage you from writing if you can't follow them to the letter 24/7. Looking back, during the first years that I started journaling, when I was most consistent was when I had no rules. I was just jotting down whatever tasks, events, or thoughts came to mind in a cheap pocket-sized composition notebook. Not fussing over making every page in a fancy Field Notes book count. Maybe that free writing environment was exactly what I needed for the free flow of my thoughts.
I still want to push myself to write as much as possible. To be able to write about something that goes on each day. Otherwise, I'll start to convince myself that I have nothing to write about. It just needs to not feel like some act I need to do to cross it off my list of chores for the day. It needs to feel like my own space that I can enter and leave whenever I want, and contribute as much as I feel necessary.