Earlier today, Darrenkeith and I were chatting about this #30DayBlogChallenge and the benefits thereof. He mentioned that he doesn’t really see it as a challenge, but more of an exercise to sharpen/better his writing skills. I totally get that as a legit way of looking at it. He also mentioned that he’s more accepting the fact that he’s writing for himself, more than hoping to do so for other eyes to read and comment on.

His mention of “writing for oneself” led me to make the comment that what that is, is journaling. Journaling is something I’ve read a lot about regarding all the aspects of it, especially those that are beneficial. It’s something that I actually started in 2017 in that very journal you see in the photo above. What I quickly learned is that it takes discipline to form a journaling habit, pretty much like any other habit, for that matter. I would start, then stop for awhile, only to pick up doing it again, which resulted in large gaps in time between entries. This year I started again and have been a lot more diligent, though still not daily.

I’ve read about the common ways of journaling – things like giving thanks for five things in your life, writing about goals, etc. Some say it’s not quite like a diary, where you aimlessly do a brain dump of whatever is on your mind, others say it’s ok. I tend to do a mix of all of that because it gives a larger picture, a snapshot in time, or timeframe of what my mental thoughts, trends may be. That’s useful for me because, over time, it does allow me to gauge what I’ve been going through and even why (yes I periodically go back and read past entries one a large block of time). It allows to see how serious I am about reaching goals by looking at the current results/state of being regarding progress towards achievement, so I’d say I’m getting some benefit out of this regular “exercise”.

What seems to help solidify the habit is to journal early in the morning before the day really kicks into gear, as my mind is pretty clear and it’s one way of starting the day out. I want to create another habit of reading the entries before going to bed as well, to see what kind of effects that may produce,

As you see, I’m old school – tactile pen and paper journaling versus electronic. Like listening to music via physical mediums like vinyl, cassette, CD, minidisc, etc (anything outside of relying on an internet or cellular connection to do so), provides a different and preferred experience for me.

Well, that’s it for now. As always, thanks for there read.

Oceans of rhythm…

Fresh