Dear Diary: The Benefits of Keeping a Journal

As we go through life and accrue experience, it's a natural desire to try and document that experience. Whether it relates to career or personal highlights, I think we get a sense of reassurance from keeping a record of what we've done and where we've come from. This is why I think journaling is a good thing to do.

In fact, we've been doing it pretty much since our birth as a species. Cave painting, hieroglyphics, tapestries, and black-and-white photos have all contributed to our sense of history of the human race. In my opinion, journals continue this, even if only on a personal basis.

From the point of view of career, it's a logical process to create a portfolio of previous achievements, hence the existence of CVs and, indeed, websites like LinkedIn. A journal takes this chronicle process a step further, giving its creator a sense of the process which their achievements have undertaken, thereby enabling them to look back retrospectively and learn from both good and bad points of the journey they've made on any project.

On a more personal note, the simple cathartic release of committing words to paper (or screen) is a huge benefit to personal wellbeing and development. I've been keeping a journal for a number of years, and it's been fascinating to process the journey of work and emotion I've undergone over the course of that time. Similarly, the prospect of what I might go on to add to my journal motivates me to keep going, professionally and personally, to even bigger, better and richer experiences.

Clearly, not everything we journal about will be right as rain, since no life or career is really like this. Some of the things we go through can be inconvenient at best, to downright traumatic at worst. In either case, or any in between, taking the time to physically, mentally and emotionally process what's gone wrong, why it's happened and how to move forwards as best as possible, is not just sensible, but sometimes essential as an act of survival. Nobody goes through life without any pain or failure, but successful people turn that negativity into success. Journaling can be a useful method of achieving this goal.

It's understood that some of us have much more arduous jobs and lives than others. Whatever we do, and however hard our circumstances may or may not be, there needs to be a sense of self-care and back-covering to ensure our own continuous ability to survive in a difficult and sometimes dangerous world. Journaling ensures that we keep a record of the processes we go through, which can help us in surprising ways. Some of the best plans of business or life can germinate from ideas which are written down in the pages of a humble journal.

There are probably many other benefits to keeping a journal. I know I'm not alone in doing it and getting good things from it. If anyone else shares in my journaling joy: more power to you.