7 Reasons You Absolutely Need A Journal In College

It can be tough to maintain track of our hectic schedules while also making time to reflect on ourselves and how we are doing, especially as college students. This is why we recommend buying a college journal; it will not only help you organize your life, but it will also allow you to look inside yourself to understand what your goals are and what you need to improve on. Not convinced yet? Here are 7 reasons you absolutely need a journal in college!

1. Motivate Better Goal Outcome

The first reason you absolutely need a college journal: To improve your goal outcome. By allowing yourself to wake up each morning with a journal and writing out a list of your goals for the day, you will be more motivated to get them done so that you can feel accomplished by the end of when checking off those boxes. When you actually write out what you want to complete, that will make it feel more doable, and it serves as a good reminder to yourself for when there are things you need to get done. On top of that, writing down your goals will assist you to brainstorm ways to attain them; without realizing it, you are already envisioning how you will achieve your goal as you write it down. It’s critical to remember not to set too many daily objectives for yourself, or you’ll become disheartened if you don’t achieve them by the end of the day. Limit yourself to no more than five goals per day, and make sure they’re clear and achievable in the timeframe that you prefer.

2. Helps Your Mental Health

You may not be totally convinced that a college journal will help you achieve your goals, but did you know that it also boosts your mental health? By getting in the habit of journaling when you wake up or before you go to bed, you are able to use the pen and paper as a private outlet for your anxieties or as a place to write down your aspirations. You are also allowing yourself to dive deeper within yourself to develop a better grasp of your beautiful intellect as you communicate your anxieties, feelings, and thoughts in a productive way. You have complete control over your journal, which will aid in the organization of your ideas as well as the brainstorming of answers to the issues you feel you can’t handle. Practicing positive self-talk, analyzing your objectives and arranging your day, or simply writing to yourself in a safe area are all useful ways to use your journal to benefit your mental health. Overall, keeping a college journal is a great method to develop healthy mental habits and reclaim control of your mind!

3. Boosts Emotional Intelligence

A college journal will boost your emotional intelligence by making you more self-aware. Writing in your own personal journal does not require you to put on any sort of filter; you can say whatever you want about how you are feeling, unapologetically. By writing whatever it is you want to write without fearing judgment from others, the honesty will surprise you as you get to know yourself better without realizing it. You allow yourself to gain a deeper understanding of your emotions and what caused you to feel them; this will help you better recognize which habits, situations, or even people have negative or positive impacts on your life. You’re confronting what’s going on in your life, how it’s making you feel, and what’s coming up next, which will make you more aware of everything and empower you to take control of your mental health even more. Begin writing to gain a deeper insight into yourself and to learn what is dragging you down or raising you up in life.

4. Allows You To Gain Important Life Skills

College is all about gaining important life skills, so why don’t you get a college journal to push you along that journey? By journaling, you will gain life skills such as critical thinking and good communication. As you boost emotional intelligence by journaling, you are also improving your communication skills. Recognizing your emotions and writing them down will directly correlate with your ability to then communicate them out loud to others; not only will this help you even further understand your feelings, but it will also help your relationship with others. First, express yourself in the privacy of your journal, and then you’ll be able to share your thoughts and ideas with others more effectively! As for critical thinking, by analyzing and questioning your own thoughts, you are then better able to dig deeper into how your emotions affect your actions. By knowing this, you can then critically think about why others may be acting a certain way towards you and then how to approach the situation.

5. Advances Ambitions And Creativity

Up next on why you need to run to get your own college journal right now: It will heighten your creativity and ambitions. As you journal, you allow yourself to get lost in any world that you dream up for yourself and that will allow you to explore what you may want to do with your life; whether that be what you want to do in the future or what you want to do next Tuesday! Plus, as you write about your goals and ambitions you will ensure that you are always keeping them in mind and are not forgetting them. The creativity sparks as you remind yourself of your ambitions; you allow yourself to brainstorm what you will do to reach your goals! Other ways your creativity can advance through journaling is through prompts you give yourself to write out; these may help you come up with ideas for hobbies to pick up, how to handle certain situations, what to do when you are bored, etc. Every college student needs a little bit of help boosting their creativity and reminding them of their ambitions; journaling is the perfect way to do that! 

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6. Improves Your Organization Skills

Everybody needs some organization in their lives, especially college students! A college journal will not only improve your mental health, it will also allow you to organize your life. By making to-do lists, writing out your schedule, highlighting goals for yourself you can take control of your hectic life. Writing down your daily or weekly assignments is productive and useful because seeing them written down in front of you will make it feel less overwhelming than all the worries flying around in your head. Then, as you check each item off your to-do lists or goal lists, you will feel far more confident that you can get it all done, giving you the motivation you need to continue. Additionally, you can organize your journal in whatever way you would like that is both aesthetically pleasing and useful to you! A college journal is more than just a diary; it’s also a planner, and trust us when we say that writing down what you need to do will help you stay much more organized.

7. Helps Build Better Habits

The final reason you absolutely need a college journal is that it helps you build better habits. First off, the whole concept of journal writing is a habit that one must get into but once they do, they reek the tremendous amount of benefits. Writing down your goals, thoughts, feelings, successes, and failures will all help you be aware of your actions and behaviors, therefore allowing you to build better habits to adapt to the situations you learn about whilst journaling. The best trick to help you with this is creating a habit tracker in your journal; writing down habits you would like to be better with and keeping track of how often you do them will encourage you to build better habits. For example, reading a chapter of a book each day or making sure to drink a certain amount of water!

So there you have it: seven reasons why you must have a journal in college. Get a notebook and write anything you want in it to improve your mental health, develop better life skills and habits, and boost your productivity!