5 Ways Journaling Can Boost Your Creativity
Contrary to popular belief, being creative isn't just for artists, writers, or musicians. No matter what the world tells you, it can be for journalers too! Far from being an innate talent that only a select few are born with, creativity is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and nurtured by anyone. But how does journaling help people become more creative? Armed with a fountain pen and your favorite LOCHBY notebook, how does the daily habit of writing in your journal translate to art?
The thing is, there's more to your creative side than just journal entries - or even strokes of watercolor, lines of poetry, and the chords of a song for that matter. That being said, regardless of the type of journal you have, your life as a journal keeper is filled with more creativity than you think. In today's list, we want to look at the amazing ways journaling can help you stay creative everyday!
1. It's a gold mine of ideas.
As the home of your innermost thoughts, your journal is more than just a place for your to-do list: it's also where a lot of your unique ideas reside. The great thing about this is that amazing discoveries and inventions often come from the simplest of such ideas, and journaling allows you to keep a treasure trove of them, each one waiting to be developed, in order to change the world. What's more, changing the world doesn't even mean all of it; it can be as simple as changing your own in order to make improvements to the quality of your life.
A perfect example of ideas that could've changed the world can be found in Leonardo da Vinci's journals. Often, experts say that his ideas were ahead of its time and would've allowed advancements in the field of medicine and engineering had they been published. Still, despite da Vinci's wishes to be remembered by others through the content of his notebooks, he also said that, "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
So whether your intention is to send ripples across time and space hoping to be remembered for years to come, or to just apply creative solutions to simple everyday tasks, journaling can help you keep track of all your ideas so you can better understand them and put them to good use later on.
Wherever you are and whatever time it is, having the portable Pocket Journal can ensure that you have somewhere to jot your ideas down on so you don’t forget them!
2. It's good problem solving practice.
Problem solving is just as creative as painting a dreamy landscape or writing a song, and this is because more often than not, problems require us to think out of the box just as we would when pursuing more artistic endeavors. By encouraging us to choose the road less taken, our creative side helps us tackle challenges that enable us to find solutions to improve not just ourselves but also things, situations, and relationships.
For example, in a certain type of writing used by journalers called stream of consciousness writing, you're encouraged to write without pause for a certain amount of time, which makes our unfiltered thoughts available for rereading right after. Such an exercise can provide perspective that wouldn't have been available if your thoughts just stayed in your head, and provides a means to see a tangible version of what you're trying to figure out.
This gives your mind a creative workout by forcing you to look at the details of your problem, followed by the bigger picture, and everything else in between so that you can find a fitting solution to your problem.
3. It encourages self-expression.
Undeniably, journaling is one of the best ways to showcase creativity simply because there are no rules to follow once you decide to keep one. It doesn't matter what you have to offer - thoughts, ideas, experiences, or emotions - seeing as there's no limit to how you can express these things. For this reason, journals come in many forms: poetry, art, food, gratitude, travel, fitness, and junk journals are just some of the more popular ones that people often use as avenues for self-expression.
What's more, we're honest in our journals because they're so personal to us, and that takes expressing one self to a whole new level.
What makes self-expression so vital is the fact that it gives us the chance to process and understand ourselves. In the process, we get to enjoy the freedom that we so easily lose in the face of a world that, on a daily basis, tries to mold us into its liking. Lost as we are, through journaling, we're able to choose the identity we want and are able to find our true selves.
4. It teaches us to be fearless.
If there's something a journal is good at, it's being a non-judgmental friend. You can go in uncensored and the pages will simply accept what you have to say, no questions asked. And because this is the case, each time you return to journaling, you eventually become more confident and sure of yourself until you're no longer afraid to speak your mind, thus giving you the chance to practice self-expression.
Unfortunately, because of different factors like what we've been told as children by grown ups and society as a whole, we've come to fear a lot of things - failure, what others think of us, not being perfect - and as a result, this subdues our creativity. But being unafraid opens a lot of doors and gives our imagination free reign to formulate unique thoughts that will allow us to create beautiful, meaningful things.
5. It helps us find and maintain "Flow."
Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is credited to have made Flow popular, defines it as “…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” In simple terms, it's being "in the zone" - and the process of taking pen to paper in journaling encourages us to reach such a zone, a place where our creativity has the opportunity to thrive.
So whether it's writing, junk journaling, or any other activity related to the art of keeping a journal, the process allows us to experience and trigger Flow, bringing us to a state where we're able to get lost in the motions of creating, all while uninterrupted by things like limitations, fear, and the opinions or judgment of others.
Plus, on the upside, studies associate Flow with "subjective well-being, satisfaction with life, and general happiness", and has even been linked to productivity and motivation at work. So we get to enjoy the benefits of art while being happy. That's a big win.
Conclusion
How else has journaling helped you nurture your creativity, and what benefits have you enjoyed as a result? What creative endeavors have you successfully completed using one of our LOCHBY notebooks?
No matter how you channel your creativity on a daily basis, we hope you find happiness and fulfillment in it! That said, keep creating!
