November 11, 2025
Introduction to Journaling for Self-Improvement
Depending upon your personality, journaling can either sound like the best or worst activity ever. Some of you may feel that writing down your thoughts or feelings, especially every day, is a chore. Others of you love to write. But even if you’re not a fan of writing, it’s undeniable that consistent journaling does have a positive effect on the person doing it. There’s just something about the act of getting it all out that’s relieving. It’s no wonder that mental health professionals will suggest writing or art to expedite healing.
I for one will outright say that, as a writer, I am biased towards journaling. But even if you don’t have an affinity for writing, I’m going to try to convince you why journaling is a practice you should seriously consider. Of course, the trick is finding out how on earth to carve out time to do so with a busy life. But one activity that can fairly easily be squeezed into the life of even a busy mom is journaling.
In this post I’m going to guide you through how you can journal as a mom for maintaining mental wellness, which includes talking about what journaling even is, how you can blend it into your schedule, and journaling methods.
What Even is Journaling?
Simply put, journaling is the act of writing down true-life events, thoughts, and feelings. Beyond simply listing and recording, journaling allows us to explore our feelings or make sense of the world around us and what we think we know (Boud, 2001). This means journaling can be used to record events, to self-express, or as a form of therapy (Boud, 2001). Journaling is powerful because it “has the power to clarify and disentangle thinking, to bring conscious focus and a more objective perspective to experiences” (Boud, 2001). Additionally, journaling allows us to practice two important things: self-monitoring and reflection.
Self-Monitoring in Journaling
Self-monitoring is pretty self-explanatory. Writing consistently will eventually yield patterns. As human beings, we all have patterns in action, thoughts, reactions, and feelings, whether we realize we’re creating a pattern or not. Identified patterns can then help you understand much about yourself, such as negative patterns of thought or reaction that you need to work on.
An example of self-monitoring is a symptom journal. Once symptoms are catalogued for a length of time, the results can be very helpful not only for you but for the medical professionals in your life trying to understand your bodily issues. Trying to keep track of symptom patterns in your mind alone simply doesn’t work that well, even for those who have great memories. The same can apply to mental health symptoms that can be shown to a mental health professional.
In a study on the importance of self-regulation through a social cognitive lens, it’s stated that “[s]elf-monitoring may add valuable structure to certain types of writing, as self-monitoring often brings about transformational self-insight through greater awareness of behaviours” (Zimmerman, 2007). This is why journaling can be a powerful tool for self-improvement, since “both writing and self-monitoring can illuminate goals, tendencies, and opportunities for change (Hensley & Munn, 2020). So not only can the act of writing it all out bring about transformation (which can greatly help if you feel stuck or overwhelmed or confused about any aspect of your life as a mother), but it can act as a form of at-home therapy.
Reflection in Journaling
Reflection generally occurs after an event happens and “has been described as a process of turning experience into learning … [or] a way of exploring experience in order to learn new things from it” (Boud, 2001). Although there isn’t a specific formula for “proper” reflection, reflection generally “involves taking the unprocessed, raw material of experience and engaging with it as a way to make sense of what has occurred” (Boud, 2001). In other words, “[i]t involves exploring often messy and confus[ing] events and focusing on the thoughts and emotions that accompany them” (Boud, 2001).
Even if your life hasn’t felt particularly confusing or messy, it is still challenging (because life is never a piece of cake). This means that, especially in a role as challenging as motherhood, there will be plenty of material to get out on paper. This can just be day-to-day sentiments about anything, such as being a stay-at-home or a working mom, or financial distress, or being a single mom taking care of a special needs child, or being sleep-deprived because of a baby that screams at 2am every night. Writing is an activity that brings order to even the most disorderly circumstances.
Next-Level Mental Benefits for Moms Who Journal
Other than the explanation of some benefits and an overview of what journaling is above, why else should moms journal? Besides self-expression and thought-processing, women can up their journaling game by considering how they can write about their internalization of certain ideals, such as ideals set upon them by any outside influence or entity (such as their parents or Western culture), for a deeper understanding of their identity and role as a mother. Because of the constant flood women face in places such as school, work, and home “regarding societal expectations and ideals of motherhood, women internalize these pressures, often accepting external expectations and responsibilities as their own despite recognizing the impossibility of fulfilling these expectations” (Barber, 2011).
Our thoughts about certain ideas that we may have been raised with or are at least prevalent in our culture are not always acceptable to speak aloud. This makes a journal an attractive alternative to in-person conversation because it’s a place we can process our thoughts about any topic or belief without fear of being argued against. Journals therefore offer “a space where [women] can record, reflect, and become aware of … constructed expectations” (Barber, 2011).
This means frequent journaling can help mothers create a stronger sense of identity, while also acting as something of a lifeline. A journal can empower a writer because “the very process of rendering [your] experience into language prompts [you] to take [your]self, [your] life, [your] experience, and [your] written voice seriously” (Barber, 2011).
How Do I Begin Journaling?
Choosing Your Style
Before you begin journaling, you must figure out what materials you will use: hard copy or a digital journal. Personally, I’m partial to writing by hand since I believe the mind-to-hand connection—actually putting pen to paper—is an experience that is somewhat lost in the digital sense. Having a personal, real-life journal that you can touch and open is special to me, and since many of us likely get too much screen time as it is, hard copy journaling can provide a much-needed break.
But, of course, I won’t judge if you choose digital journaling. When you start journaling, you may find it helpful to do both digital and non-digital journaling to discover which one is your favorite. And, of course, no one’s stopping you if you decide to do a mixture of both.
For hard copy journaling, you don’t have to choose an expensive, fancy, leather-bound journal, although you can if you want to. But a basic spiral notebook will do. Either pencil or pen is acceptable (don’t worry about the permanency of pen since grammatical mistakes don’t matter in this case).
For digital journaling, I recommend a laptop, although a phone can work too (I personally find doing journal entries on a smaller screen to be annoying, but you could be different than me). You can use paid programs like Microsoft Word or Scrivener, or programs like Google Docs or the Notes app on your phone (or any program you find that suits you). As I mentioned above, some experimentation may be necessary, so the first couple months of journaling may prove to be an inconsistent experience.
Create a Schedule
After deciding which style(s) suit you best, you then need to decide upon a schedule. Having a schedule is more likely to yield consistent results than just “doing journaling whenever I have the time.” Going into journaling without a clear schedule is a recipe for forgetting to stick to it. Although I recommend a small amount of time every day, you can choose to journal every other day, only on the weekends, once a week, or on select days that work best for your schedule.
You can journal for as long as you like. If you somehow have the space for an hour of journaling per day, then have at it. But seeing as many busy moms likely won’t have that luxury, I recommend at least fifteen minutes per session. Of course, some days may vary, with one day’s journaling totaling ten minutes and the next day at forty-five minutes. So while a schedule is important for disciplinary purposes, it isn’t something you’re completely bound to. My ideal journaling schedule is once per day for half an hour.
How Do I Start? What Do I Even Write About?
I understand as a writer that it’s entirely possible to draw a blank page even when the prompt is clear: Just write about your feelings. But even though you haven’t been prompted to create a fictional world, it can still be tricky figuring out how to begin.
One way to begin each entry is with a warm-up. For instance, you can start each entry writing about the weather. This isn’t meant to serve a distinct purpose other than just to get your brain going. After the warm-up, you can write about anything that popped into your mind that day, like a moment of frustration, or a mistake you felt you made, or something your child did and how you responded. You can write about a conflict with your partner and how that affected your child or something that happened at work. Use this space to express your feelings but also contemplate on certain expectations held against you and how you may agree or disagree with them.
If nothing particularly eventful happened that day or week, you can choose a motherhood-related topic to write your thoughts on. Perhaps you have an opinion about being a stay-at-home mom versus a working mom. Write your thoughts on that topic and how your life and goals relate to that topic. Or you could write about a goal you have in mind, why you have it, and how you’re going to succeed at that goal.
Conclusion
While journaling isn’t a magic pill, it does carry the potential to be a powerful supplementary source of support for mothers and the myriad of challenges they endure. Journaling for short (or long) amounts of time almost every day can have a therapeutic effect and provide a much-needed space for women to process internal and external pressures. In a mother’s journal, her thoughts are her own, and she can have the potential to be open about her every feeling.
About the Author
Krista Ruffo, born and raised in Orlando, Florida, began blogging with South Project in February of 2025. She’s a University of Central Florida graduate with a BA in English and a Certificate in Editing and Publishing. A passionate writer and reader, Krista aspires to work in book publishing in the future. She currently works as a Content Coordinator for a family magazine. In her free time, she enjoys creative writing, taking photos, hiking, and gardening.
Sources Referenced
Barber, T. (2011). Journalling through Motherhood: a Personal Exploration of the Therapeutic and Empowering Potential of Journalling (pp. 46–54). https://ec.msvu.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/074e4de9-1d59-4ffc-b2f3-fd798405b3e1/content
Boud, D. (2001). Using journal writing to enhance reflective practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2001(90), 9-10, 14-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.16
Hensley, L. C., & Munn, K. J. (2020). The power of writing about procrastination: journaling as a tool for change. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 44 (10), 1–16. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2019.1702154
Zimmerman, B. (2007, November 9). Chapter 2 – Attaining Self-Regulation: A Social Cognitive Perspective. ScienceDirect; Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780121098902500317