Are you having trouble trying to measure your personal success? Do you feel like you haven’t accomplished much and wonder where you’re going or what you’re doing? Journaling is a great way to chronicle your journey. Here are some tips on how you can use a journal as you strive towards success.

1. Don’t go fancy. The best way to keep and use a journal is to buy a notebook or journal that isn’t so pretty or attractive that you don’t want to mess it up by writing in it. Buy something rugged that can withstand being carried around and transported without tearing up.

2. Write down dates and times. As you begin your success journal, remember to write the date and even the time at the top of each page. You want to keep your journal very detailed so you can go back to specific dates as needed.

3. Make a note of accomplishments. Don’t forget to write down every accomplishment you experience, no matter how great or small. These are milestones in your journey to success and should be recorded.

4. Make a note of failures or mistakes. As equally important is your mistakes and failures. These are filled with important lessons for you to learn from. While you might feel bad about them at the time, it is important to write them down and write down any lessons you can see from them at the time.

5. Jot down your thoughts and feelings. It is also important that you keep notes of your thoughts during these times as well. You’ll be able to track your emotional highs and lows, and will probably even be able to see how your mental status corresponds with your successes or lack thereof.

The idea of a gratitude journal was made popular when Oprah proclaimed on her talk show that she keeps one herself. The gratitude journal took the world by storm, but seems to have died down over the last few years. If you don’t already keep a gratitude journal, you should. It is a great way to record daily blessings and will motivate and inspire you to look for the good in everything.

Step 1: Choose a journal. First, purchase a journal to write your gratitude lists in. It can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like. You might even want to buy a blank journal and decorate the front cover yourself.

Step 2: Write your gratitude list daily. The most important thing about keeping a gratitude journal is to write in it every single day. There will be days when you don’t feel like writing anything. Those days are the most important ones to write a gratitude list.

The beauty of a gratitude journal is that it becomes a fun habit once you write in it for a few weeks. You’ll begin to look forward to writing your daily gratitude list. Here are some tips to keeping you going:

• Ask yourself every day, “What am I grateful for today?”
• Write in the present.
• Think about the little things you’re grateful for that you usually take for granted.
• If you’re traveling, bring your gratitude journal along. Write in it at the end of the day.
• Write a list of things you’re grateful for about yourself.

Did you know that if you are depressed, you can help yourself just by doing something as simple as keeping a journal? Lots of people keep a journal for many different reasons. If you are depressed, I want to encourage you to journal your way out of depression.

As always, if you are depressed, you should always follow your physician’s instructions. If you have been prescribed medication for depression, do not stop taking it. Rather, think of journaling as an extra tool to help you walk out of that depression.

One of the most common symptoms of depression is extreme anxiety or a feeling of hopelessness about a situation. When you feel like you don’t have any control over a situation, you feel extreme anxiety because of it, which only feeds into your already depressive state.

Journaling is an outlet for you to express your thoughts and feelings without causing harm or damage to yourself or anyone around you. So often, a patient who is depressed will scream at others around them or lash out in anger at others, even though they don’t mean to. Journaling helps stop this.

Keeping a journal for your depression is very easy and simple to do. Don’t think that you can only write in your journal. You should use your journal in any way you see fit to help you work through what you are feeling.

The most important thing about journaling through your depression is that you put your thoughts and feelings on the paper. Whether it is through writing, creating collages, or drawing pictures. Any way you choose to do it is fine.