Modern life keeps us so busy that it is almost impossible for anyone to spend some quality time with themselves. Whether it is a cramming career, a busy social life or our family who needs our attention, every day, we ignore one of the most important person in our lives: ourselves!
Even when you get the time, it becomes difficult for a person to think about what’s really important in our lives. In our leisure hours, we still worry about the things like problems at work, relationship difficulties, or social dilemmas. Not a lot of people spend their leisure hours thinking about themselves, their own thoughts or their personal judgements and feelings, which should be an important part of our lives.
Maintaining a personal journal or writing regularly in a journal can be a great way to spend some quality time with yourself. Whether you write in your journal about everything that happens to you every day, or only on special days, your journal can become the best friend you need in your journey to self-discovery.
If you are not sure what to write in your journal, here are more than 25 prompts that you can write about in your journal to discover the real you.
- Are you Happy? The question is a very simple one, but you can uncover a lot of inner secrets with this one query. We are so busy living life these days, we fail to think whether we are really happy in the life we have.
- Did all your Childhood Dreams come Too? If you can immediately answer “yes” to this question, you might just be one of the happiest people in the world. However, most of us live with unfulfilled dreams, but writing about them can give you hope.
- What is your Earliest Memory? Writing about this might bring back some beautiful memories from your past, ones that you had almost forgotten or not thought about for years.
- If you could go back to your Childhood, what Would you do Differently? This is also quite a loaded question to ask yourself. Maybe there are some unforgettable mistakes in your life that you might want to rectify.
- Who has Influenced you the Most in your Life? This question can be a perfect way to remember and pay tribute to someone you respect in your life.
- What is the one Question you Might Ask into a Crystal Ball? Fun question, but answering it might reveal your deepest desires in life.
- Write to Yourself 5 years in the Past. Any advice you want to give the younger you? Any mistakes you want the old you to avoid? Anything you want them to be watchful of? Or, would you like the earlier you to be strong and hold on, as everything will get better eventually.
- Write to Yourself 5 Years in the Future. Likewise, there must be something you want to write to yourself 5 years into the future: any kind of life goals that you want to achieve in the next few years, or the way you want to see your life 5 years down the road.
- What are the 5 Happiest Memories in your Life? What can be a better way to relieve the happiest memories of your life, except by writing about them?
- Complete the Sentence “I am where I am today because of…”. It might be because of a certain person in your life who has motivated you, or because of a special quality that you have nurtured in yourself.
- How Do You Feel About your Work/Career/Job? Time to get honest: do you actually enjoy the work you do, or is it just the means to make a livelihood? If you could be in any profession in the world, what would you be? What would you choose as a career if you had a chance to do your life over?
- What do you Think is your Biggest Asset? What is the one (or several) thing that makes you different, or makes you more likely to succeed in life: your dedication, your determination, the fact that you can work harder than others or that you are a quick learner, your winning smile, or your ability to say the right things at the right time?
- What Would You Like to Change in Yourself? If you admire yourself as a person, there must also be something about you that you don’t like? What is that attribute or characteristics that you want to change or rectify in yourself, and why?
- How Would you Describe your Perfect Life? By answering this question honestly, you’ll not only be able to imagine a perfect life for yourself, but also evaluate your present life with that idea.
- Is There Something You Regret Doing in your Life? You may not be able to rectify your mistakes, but writing about the one regret in your life will keep it fresh in your mind.
- Is There Something You Regret NOT Doing in your Life? Perhaps what’s more powerful than regretting your past actions is to regret not doing something in your past. Writing about a missed opportunity in life can be painful, but at the same time, it can be liberating.
- What Are the Things You Are Proud of in your Life? Your family, your achievements, your career, your friends? Reminding yourself of everything that is good and happy in your life is definitely something you’d want to write about.
- List the Selfless Things You Have Done for Other People in your Life. There could be only one or two selfless acts in your life, or dozens. However many they are, making a list of the times when you were kind and selfless can be extremely rewarding.
- How Have You Grown in the Last 10 Years? What were the mistakes you would have made 10 years back, but you won’t now? What are the qualities you have gained the last few years of your life, and what are you doing differently – these are the questions you need to answer.
- Are you Using your Talents or Skills Fully? Most of us only use a fraction of what we know or can do in our daily lives; in fact, our jobs or social lives doesn’t require the maximum use of our skills. This can be frustrating, if you aren’t able to use your full capabilities in your life.
- Are your Friends and Family Supportive of You? The support of your loved ones are crucial for your happiness and prosperity, so think about whether you really have it in your life.
- How Would You Further Improve Yourself? There’s no end to improving yourself, even when you are at your late 60s. Wherever you are in your life, at whatever point, you should always make further plans of improvement.
- Do You Need to Improve Your Relationships? If we are stuck in an unhappy relationship, it can really affect our chances of happiness. Therefore, it’s never too late to evaluate your romantic and other social relationships.
- What do Other People Like About You? What are the qualities that you think you have that makes other people pleased or happy? How do you make other people feel better about yourself?
- Do People Around You Understand You Well? There’s nothing more painful than not being understood by your loved ones, and the people around you! So, think about whether these people you care about actually understand you or not.
- What Do You Value Most in Life? Money, ambition, career, friendship, wealth, family, love – it can be any one from this list, all of them, or something completely different.
- Do You Like Yourself as a Person? Finally, the most important question: do you actually like the person you are inside? Would you be friends with yourself? There can be no direct “yes” or “no” answer to this heavily loaded question, but the answer will help you understand yourself better.
If you don’t want to fill up your journal with mundane everyday details of what you ate or where you went, answering these – and several hundred other – questions about yourself and your life. This can be a nice practice to spend more quality time with yourself, with your thoughts, and to think about your life.
