Journal Prompts to Help You Design the Life YOU Want
On clarity, courage, and taking action
A year ago, I was overweight, stressed, and felt anxious about my future.
A year ago, I constantly felt that I was living somebody else’s life. My choices in the past were based on what I thought I wanted. Deep down, I was searching for approval from others. I designed a life where I would meet the expectations of others.
One of the top regrets of the dying is that they regret not having the courage to live a life true to themselves, but that they lived a life that others expected of them.
A year ago, I was living a life that was expected of me. But when I came across the wisdom of the elderly, I decided that life was too short.
Too short to live according to other people’s expectations.
So, I made a promise to myself. To not stop fighting to design a life I want. To not stop fighting to discover what I want and how I want to live my life. No matter what others would think of the choices I made.
The commitment was liberating. It filled me with hope and energy.
But from there, I was unsure how to make the necessary choices. I decided to start journaling. To find a path forward, I had to look backward to understand myself, to understand why I had made the choices I made, to understand what brought me down, made me anxious, and ultimately stopped me from making courageous choices.
For several months, I spent time journaling. I tested different journaling prompts to help me think and gain clarity and courage.
Here are 3 areas I journaled about:
- Relationships
- Work
- Daily habits
Here are some insights I gained and the prompts I used.
The Impact of Relationships
The quality of your relationships has an immense impact on your mental and physical well-being. This much is clear from research and probably the longest study on human happiness.
Therefore, I thought it would make sense for me to reflect on my relationships in my journal.
But how?
Well, life is lived not in the head but in your day to day-to-day interactions you have. At work, in the store, with friends and family.
Every day, in the evening, I’d use the following prompt to reflect on the quality of my relationships:
Who did I spend time with today? How did the interaction make me feel? What were we conversing about? What about interaction made me feel the way I felt?
After doing this for a few weeks, I’d discover patterns. First, I discovered the interactions that took energy from me. Then I discovered that they were always with the same people.
I’d also discover a tendency in me to calm situations, to be a buffer in crises, and that I’d say things and do things that I really didn’t stand for.
Surprise: I allowed other people to cross subtle boundaries, and I often would feel bad afterward.
Getting Into Flow
What do you want to become when you grow up?
This question, which is often used as a conversation starter or an icebreaker with kids and teenagers, is not very useful. There and then they might give you an answer even without knowing the answer. How could they?
Two things are clear to me: by asking this question, we imply that we perhaps need to know what we want to do, and second, that we link identity with a job.
Instead, a better way to think about finding work we love is to focus on flow states.
Flow states are those moments when time seems to dissipate into naught, and we can engage in the activity we are doing for long periods of time, with full focus. When we are done, we are filled with more energy. Flow state equals better mental health and higher energy levels.
This is what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered in his research on flow states.
Inspired by this, instead of searching for answers on what I want to do, I used the following prompts to renew my entire thinking around the question of work:
How did I feel today at work, doing my job? Did I do anything that made me enter a state of flow? What? What do I do when I get into a state of flow?
I discovered a new pattern in my life. I spent a big chunk of my waking hours doing stuff that didn’t fill me. The grind of day-to-day work left me empty and drained.
I also discovered the few moments when I went into a flow state. Those moments did not feel like work. The energy return was asymmetrical to the input. In other words, I felt great!
Habit Design and Energy Management
The third area was concerned about the structure of my day.
Life is lived from when you wake up until you go to sleep and wake up again. What you do during the waking hours will make all the difference.
How you structure your day will either drain you or fill you. Some things you have the power of choice to change. Other things, for now, you have to accept.
In journaling about my days, I started sensing another pattern. On the days I felt less stressed, more energetic, and joyful, the following things were part of my daily routine:
A daily run. Meditation. Space in my schedule to do nothing if I chose to.
On the contrary, on the days I had a headache, felt drained, and had trouble sleeping in the evening, the following things were part of my day:
No running. Back-to-back meetings and no space to breathe.
The pattern was absolutely clear to me. How I designed my daily life had an immense impact on my mood and well-being.
Not all have the freedom to choose how the workday will look like. However, I realized that by taking the time to run and meditate, I gave myself the best conditions to handle anything coming at me.
The prompts I used to discover the pattern were:
A day when I feel energetic, joyful and at peace I do the following things: A day when I feel lethargic, anxious and out of it I do the following:
Final thoughts
Designing a life you want often starts with reflexivity.
To find out what gives you energy, what takes energy, and what your passion is, you must reflect. You must write. In writing, you gain clarity, in writing, you find a why.
When you gain clarity, you can start designing the life you want, based on your insights. As you throw small bets, test different things to discover your path: continue to journal.
Journaling will help you to deal with anxiety, reduce your stress, and cope with life’s challenges. Life is a process. Make journaling part of it.
I still journal. My discoveries helped me find the courage to design a life where much of my time is spent in flow states, in good relationships, and stuff that gives me energy.
I have not quit my job yet. But I have a job that allows me to go for a daily run and meditate every day. I have a job where I get to write every day and meet people who are disadvantaged. This fills me with energy.
So are you ready? All it takes is pen and paper.
Go on, live an intentional life, and design a life where you are true to yourself.
