Why journaling can change your life

The tool of great minds

🏷️ Categories: Writing, Habits.

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Between 1947 and 1963, Susan Sontag wrote a series of intense journals.

Those journals were never meant to be read by anyone but herself. However, in them, Sontag documented how she was becoming the person and writer she aspired to be. As she confessed in one entry: “In the journal I express myself more freely than with anyone; I create myself.”

For Sontag, the journal had enormous potential.

It was her personal laboratory, a space to pour out ideas, doubts, and reflections on what unsettled her. But she wasn’t the only one who understood the power of journaling. Writers like Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, and Kafka always kept a journal close. It was also essential for scientists like Newton, Einstein, and Darwin, and for leaders such as Benjamin Franklin and Marcus Aurelius. Even elite athletes like Eliud Kipchoge use it to reflect on their training and improve their performance.

Why have so many brilliant people dedicated time to writing a journal?

What are the benefits?

What a journal can do for you

Keeping a journal is, in essence, thinking about your life and putting it into writing.

Something this simple has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety, improve the immune system, and foster emotional resilience (Pennebaker, 1997; Smyth & Helm, 2003). And, because of its simplicity and power, it has been a key tool for great minds.

The reasons are many:

• It allows you to learn from past experiences. Virginia Woolf wrote that when rereading her journals she discovered meanings she had never noticed at the time. This is one of the most powerful reasons and the same motive that led the Stoic Marcus Aurelius to keep a journal.

• It sharpens memory. Susan Sontag herself found, when rereading her youth notebooks, a raw and detailed portrait of who she was at each moment—something impossible to reconstruct with memory alone (Sontag, 2008).

• It motivates you to make better use of each day. Knowing you’ll record what you did helps overcome procrastination. You’ll always want to document daily progress toward your goals, and there will always be reasons to make an effort.

• It provides proof of your progress. Writing down your advances over months becomes tangible evidence of your growth. This record reinforces the habit since you won’t want to break your streak. This is the essence of Seinfeld’s method—only in journal form.

The challenge of consistency

Even a writer like Sontag admitted she struggled to maintain the habit.

There were periods of feverish writing and others of prolonged silence—what she called “I write in bursts.” As happens to anyone, life got in the way: studies, moves, relationships, illnesses, unexpected events…

Despite all that, the journal served as a compass to keep her on track.

In several entries, Sontag planned what to read, study, and write, with clear schedules and goals. This practice helped her clarify priorities: “Every afternoon from 2 to 5 I will devote to writing and studying… I will take advantage of every hour” (Sontag, 2008). Writing it down reinforced the disciplined lifestyle necessary to become a writer, applying what we now call implementation intention.

You already know keeping a journal is beneficial, but few maintain the habit…

How can you make it easy and stick with it?

How to start a journal and not abandon it

There isn’t a single “right” way to keep a journal.

It can be digital or on paper, chaotic or structured. However, there’s one very simple way to stay consistent no matter what: Write just one sentence a day.

One sentence is enough to remove initial friction and build the habit because…

• It’s easy. So easy there are no excuses not to do it.

• It gives you satisfaction once you’ve done it.

• By repeating it, you build the habit without feeling it’s a heavy obligation.

Ideas for your daily sentences

If you’re just starting, you can use questions that invite reflection without pressure. Here are simple prompts that helped me over the years and that I still use today:

Well-being and habits

• What am I grateful for today?

• Did I follow through with my good daily habits?

• What brings me peace of mind and how can I strengthen it?

Learning and inspiration

• What qualities do I admire in others and how can I cultivate them?

• What important decisions have I made and what did they teach me?

• What has been inspiring me lately? Where can I find new inspiration?

• What projects would I like to start? How are the current ones going?

Goals and organization

• What are my goals? What habits can I adopt to achieve them?

• What concrete steps can I take this week to move forward on my goals?

• What areas of my life need better organization and how can I do it?

• What are the 6 essential tasks for tomorrow? (Ivy Lee Method)

At the end of the month, you’ll have 31 sentences capturing your life, thoughts, and emotions. And when you reread them, you’ll discover—like Woolf or Sontag—new perspectives about yourself.

How to keep the habit going

When a habit feels like a burden, it’s hard to sustain it.

But journaling doesn’t need to be a great literary production: one sentence about your day is enough to create the habit. Over time, if you need to, you can write whole pages. There’s only one rule…

Make the habit so easy there are no excuses, even on the worst day.

In time, you’ll thank yourself for sticking with it.

As Sontag wrote in her journal: “The journal is a vehicle for my individuality. It represents me as someone emotionally and spiritually independent” (Sontag, 2008).

That independence is built every day you pick up the pen and reflect on your life.

✍️ Your turn: How could you start your journal today? What questions would you ask yourself to reflect on your life, act, and decide with clarity?

💭 Quote of the day: “Now I know a little more about my capacities... I know what I want to do with my life...” — Susan Sontag, Reborn

See you in the next letter! 👋

References 📚

1. Marcus Aurelius. Meditations.

2. Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162–166. URL

3. Smyth, J. M., & Helm, R. K. (2003). Focused expressive writing as self‐help for stress and trauma. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 59(2), 227-235. URL

4. Sontag, S. (2008). Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963. Macmillan.