Journaling isn’t just a hobby; it’s a habit, and it can be a great one if used properly.

Journaling is about so much more than just putting pen to paper. It has the potential to be a powerful tool that guides you through the more difficult aspects of life or helps you remember its greatest pleasures. And it isn’t just about your mental health. Journaling can have a profound impact on your emotional and physical wellbeing, as well. All it takes is a small commitment and an allocation of time, and you may be able to unlock one of the most powerful tools for self-reflection, memorization and the achievement of your goals. Here are five ways journaling can be a helpful practice to adopt in the new year.

1. Self-Reflection and Understanding

First and foremost, journaling can be a helpful and powerful tool for self-reflection. One of the most important aspects of your journal is that it belongs to you, meaning that you’re welcome to share as much as you want without fear or judgement or demands. In fact, when journaling, it’s typically beneficial to offer complete honesty, as your writing will stay between you and your journal. It might even be used to achieve an end goal, and whether your struggles are internal or external, sharing your true thoughts and ideas may be a good way to foster creativity and generate ideas. Journaling might also help you gain clarity in your thoughts, as we can often feel our emotions and ideas tangling themselves in our heads like a knot. Laying them out on paper, whether that be narratively or in some other fashion, can help you get a better idea of recurring feelings, themes and emotions you regularly encounter, potentially empowering you to navigate life’s challenges with resilience and confidence.

2. Stress Reduction

Are you looking for a solution, or are you just venting? Well, your journal might be able to help with both. If you’re looking for a solution, getting your thoughts and emotions on paper can help you understand recurring feelings, triggers and standard responses. Then, you might be more well-equipped to offer yourself solutions. If you’re just venting, your journal is also the perfect listener. It never casts judgement or interrupts. It simply offers an open forum for the cathartic sharing of emotions, stressors and sources of anxiety. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to let those emotions out and release that pent-up stress. It also gives you the power to return to those feelings when you want to, or to let go of them inside your journal when you need to separate yourself from your sources of stress and the feelings that come with them.

3. Pursuit of Tangible Goals

While it’s great to have goals and to actively pursue them, it can be difficult to feel like they’re concrete or that you have a realistic plan to achieve them without putting them on paper. That’s where your journal comes in. It is a dynamic tool that allows you to express your greatest goals and dreams. It also gives them a safe place to live while still allowing you the freedom to adjust and adapt to new circumstances associated with those goals. Furthermore, regularly checking in on your progress might force you to be accountable for what you can control. You may find motivation in the sense of accomplishment that comes with working toward them, or, if you find that you’ve plateaued, it can be a great way to brainstorm ideas to get you out of a rut. Your journal is your space to freely dream, manifest, and verbally scrapbook your journey as you turn your aspirations into a reality.

4. Crystalize Personal Growth and Moments

Again, your journal is a great tool for personal growth, helping you track the progression of your development, but it can also be a great place to document your experiences. For example, if you face challenges in your everyday life, you can use it to discuss attempts at overcoming those challenges. You might be able to figure out what works and what doesn’t work, potentially proving to be helpful in the future. You can also discover behavioral patterns, life lessons, new skills, areas of deficiency, and more than can offer direction for the next time you’re looking to improve. Additionally, journaling can be as simple as writing down your personal experiences for your own memories. Maybe you reached a milestone, and you want that day to live forever in your journal. You can explain exactly what happened, who you were with, how it made you feel and more, possibly giving you the chance to revisit those moments and still capture the emotions and significance of them.

5. Enhanced Creativity and Problem Solving

Of course, we’ve talked about how journaling can be a great way to stay in touch with the real world and to take personal inventory, but it can also be a portal to a different, more imaginative land. Whether it has actual positive effects and leads you to approach real-life problems from a different perspective, or it gives you the freedom to explore your creative side, tell stories, and bring new ideas to life, writing is one of the best ways to tap into that side of your brain. And the best part? It’s a totally blank canvas. You don’t have to follow any sort of structure, rules or prompts. You’re free to explore around in your own mind, generating fresh ideas and stories that can also give you the sense of fulfillment that comes with innovation and ingenuity. It’s a judgement-free, label-free and restriction-free sandbox for you to play with brand-new ideas.