Journaling Prompts for Daily Writing Practice

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Hello, welcome to another class. I’m Robin and today I am going to talk to you about journaling. Alright, so some of you might be wondering, what is journaling? Maybe you’ve never heard this term before. So journaling is basically the act of expressing your thoughts and feelings in writing. Okay, so it’s writing, but it’s writing about something connected to yourself. Okay, so this is possibly a goal for some of you in the new year. If you watched my video about New Year’s resolutions, I said that one resolution that many people have is to start journaling. Why, what are the benefits of journaling? If you are a language learner, for example, like you learning English, journaling can help you improve your writing skills. But in general, for anyone, journaling is a great tool because it helps you to manage anxiety, it helps you to reduce stress, it helps you to organize your thoughts by writing them down. So there are many, many, many benefits of journaling for you as a learner, for your mental health, etc. So, I’m going to give you some tips for how you can improve your writing skills through journaling. And then I’m going to give you some different examples of the types of things that you can write about because there are many different options. And the idea is for you to do it every day, if you can, if not, once a week, as often as you can. The more you do it, the more you practice, the more you will improve. 

So my tips for journaling as an English learner, because you’re trying to improve your writing, only focus on one tense. So you’ll see with some of these examples, what you are writing about. Try to think, when does it take place? Is it in the past, is in the present, am I writing about the future? Okay, so think about that and try to keep this in mind when you are writing. So try not to use a lot of different tenses because then you’ll start to be confused. And that’s when you make mistakes, which is okay. But to avoid this, try to stay in one tense. You can also make a list of vocab related to the topic that you’re writing about. Okay. So if you’re going to write about your hobbies, you might want to make a list of them. If you’re going to write about your emotions, you might want to write the different emotions that you know. And this way you see what vocabulary you are missing and what vocabulary you already know. So this is a good exercise, as well. And if you need help with some of these tenses, etc, you can refer back to our course, because we have a complete grammar course. Or you can refer to some of my old microlessons or from another teacher. So we have all kinds of topics. And you can check some vocabulary from those microlessons if you want to add that to your writing. Okay, and as I said, it’s okay to make mistakes. But the idea is to keep going because the more you do it, the more you’re going to improve. You will start to make a habit of this, of journaling. And, and you’ll start to notice your progress. So if you start journaling in January and you continue doing it through December, just imagine the progress that you’re going to make. 

Okay, so I’m going to give you some daily prompt examples. So what is a prompt? A prompt is a short text, or even an image, that provides a possible topic idea or a starting point for writing. Because you may think, yes, I want to practice my writing every day. But what do I write about? Do I just start writing random sentences? These prompts are going to give you a little bit more guidance on what you can write about, according to the topic. So there are many different kinds of journaling topics that you can refer to. You can find them online, you can google search, you can even buy a book. So there’s all kinds of different ideas. So I’m going to go through, excuse me, I’m going to go through some of these different journaling topics. 

The first one is creative writing. So if you enjoy storytelling, if you enjoy writing stories, being creative, using your imagination, this is the kind of writing prompt, journaling prompt, that you want to do. Here’s an example of a creative writing prompt. Write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now. Okay, so that’s the prompts. So then you start imagining, okay, where’s my ship taking me? Where am I going? So this is a great prompt, a great exercise for you to use your imagination. 

Some other prompts are related more to ourselves. So not so much about being creative, but really thinking about ourselves, our feelings, etc. So here’s a self-discovery prompt. A couple of them. What was your biggest fear when you were young? Here’s another one. What do I love doing? Okay, so you’ll notice that I gave you one example, that’s in the past, what was your biggest fear when you were young? And what do I love doing? So this is the present. So again, think about the tense. And you can write in the past if you’re talking about when you were a child, or in the present if you’re talking about your current likes and dislikes, for example.

Okay, another possible category of journaling could be inspirational. So, for example: What are the questions you need answers to? Okay, so this is a very broad topic, but something to get you thinking, what is the question I need the answer to? Okay, another one. How can you be kinder to yourself today? Okay, how can I be kinder? How can you be kinder to yourself today.

And along the same lines, many journaling prompts are related to mental health because journaling really is a great way to assess to analyze where you are, how you’re feeling, the status of your mental health, and then maybe share it with with someone else, with a therapist or your friends and family, whoever you want to talk about it with. Let’s look at an example of a mental health prompt. Write about the worst or the best emotion you are feeling right now. Okay, so again, if you need that emotions vocabulary, you might want to consult back to another lesson. How am I feeling? I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling happy, I’m feeling grateful, etc. Okay, another example is: List three things that made you feel anxious today. Okay, so this is a great exercise if you do it multiple days. What makes me feel anxious today? What made me feel anxious yesterday? And then if you see that it’s a pattern that it repeats, then that’s something that you could change maybe in your life.

Okay, here’s a deep or thought-provoking prompt. Okay, thought-provoking. If something provokes you, it means it makes you think. Thought-provoking means something that makes you think. For example: Describe a life-changing moment. Okay? So like a before and after. Before my life was like this and, after this event happened, it was different, for example. Okay, describe a life-changing moment. So this is a really good one.

And you may want to do something a little bit lighter. Maybe you don’t want to write something so serious. So you could look into some funny journaling prompts. For example: If you could be an animal, which one would you be? Okay, so these are funny, another way to be creative, but to get thinking. This one is in the conditional, so remember that you could answer in the conditional. If I could be an animal, I would be…which one? Okay. 

So now I want you to tell me in the comments, do you journal? maybe you journal in your native language and not in English. Maybe it’s something you want to start doing. I have never been a very good journaler, into journaling. So this is something that I want to start because I know the benefits and I am going to start doing this as well. So I hope you will, too. And I want to challenge you to pick one of the questions, one of the prompts that I have given you,and to write your answer in the comments, so I look forward to reading them. I hope that this class has been useful and I hope that you will use this as an opportunity to improve your writing skills by journaling every day. So take care and I will see you next week. Bye!