Journaling: The Surprising Communication Skill That Boosts Your Agency and Focus
- Michael Walker
- Oct 24
- 9 min read
I teach people how to communicate better, especially in the workplace. So you might wonder
why I am writing a post about journalling. Well, it is writing, for one, which is something I most definitely teach. But more than this, it is a form of communication, albeit with yourself.
Now, when I use the term “journaling”, which has a surprisingly wide application, I am talking specifically about writing down – daily – your thoughts, feelings and experiences all to the end of becoming a more mindful, effective human.
And I think there is another reason for journaling, and that is that in this age we live where everything can be outsourced, even our thinking, journaling is a way to reclaim, consolidate and exercise our agency. Why is this a good thing? Well, because I believe that as humans, we value autonomy, and while we might get into a discussion about whether autonomy and agency are the same thing, I believe that are closely related. Autonomy is one’s independent ability to make choices. Agency is the belief that we have control over our lives, we can and are able to handle what we are engaged in. Both refer to the sense that we can decide about and influence the outcomes that affect us and concern us.
We crave agency and autonomy, and in the age we live in, these are under threat.
There are ways to fight back, to counter this threat, but one way I believe that is readily available to EVERYONE, is journalling.
So what is it exactly? What are the benefits? And how should you go about doing it?
What is it?
Journaling, at its heart, is the act of noticing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and then putting them into a tangible form, allowing your internal world to surface so it can have room to breathe and maybe even shift. It is a powerful and accessible self-improvement practice because it moves your abstract internal "noise" into a cognitive space you can actually work with, helping you to understand yourself better and create order out of perceived chaos. While it can take a variety of forms – from handwritten stream-of-consciousness to a digital gratitude list – the core mechanism is about translating your inner world into concrete language to deepen your self-awareness and support emotional regulation and personal growth.
What are the benefits?
I’ve mentioned above that in a world of outsourcing everything from our thinking and happiness to how we flirt and shop, journaling is a way to reclaim our hardwired agency. But it also has a breadth of benefits for your mental and emotional well-being. It serves as a judgment-free space for your feelings to land, which is key to processing them effectively, reducing the intensity of anxiety and stress, and generally improving your emotional regulation. Beyond this immediate relief, the practice is a potent tool for self-awareness and personal growth, allowing you to track your patterns, identify emotional triggers, and develop a sense of order out of the daily rush. Ultimately, whether through focusing on gratitude to boost your mood or simply clearing your mind to enhance problem-solving and productivity, journaling enables you to extract maximum learning from your experience, accelerating your growth and giving you greater control over your inner life.
How should you go about doing it?
When starting to journal, the most important thing is to remember that there is no one "right way"; the goal is simply to find a flexible method you can stick with. And to build a lasting habit, it helps to start small, perhaps with just a single sentence, and link it to an existing daily routine, making your journal or device easily accessible whether you choose to write in the morning or evening. You should experiment with your format – be it a handwritten stream of consciousness, a digital gratitude list, or a structured CBT Thought Record – but always focus on authenticity and letting go of judgment; you are writing for your eyes only, and messy grammar is fine. To truly reap the benefits of self-awareness and personal growth, make sure you consistently move beyond merely recording events to reflecting on the deeper "why" questions, and protect your privacy so you can be completely honest with yourself.
A detailed look at the practice of journaling
The absolute most important rule to journaling is that you must find a method that you can actually stick with, something that works for you personally.
Establishing the Habit (Consistency and Routine)
To truly reap the benefits, you've got to find a way to make it stick, because consistency is crucial, even if it feels tough to stick with initially. If writing a whole page feels overwhelming, don't! You must start small to make the habit sustainable, like writing one sentence, a single question, or even just one word. Even five minutes a day can help build momentum and bring noticeable mental health benefits.
The key is to create a predictable rhythm. You need to set a dedicated time that feels most natural for you. Some people prefer journaling first thing in the morning. Others prefer to reflect right before bed to help clear the mind and improve sleep quality. Try, though, to link it to an existing routine you already do, such as having breakfast or closing your laptop for the day. And a simple practicality: keep your journal accessible, in plain sight on your bedside table or desk, to encourage daily use.
Choosing Your Method and Format
Journaling can take a variety of forms; what matters is that you quiet down your mind and reflect.
When selecting your medium, you can go analogue or digital, old-school or modern. You can journal in a spiral notepad, a notes app, a voice memo, a digital journal with a password, or even send a text message to yourself. But there is something about a pen and paper that gets our minds thinking more freely and clearly.
You also have format flexibility; you do not have to write full paragraphs. Try different formats:
· bullet points or lists for quick reflections, or gratitude
· doodles, sketching, or art if you find language limiting
· structured templates like the CBT Thought Record or specific morning/evening prompts (more about these below)
Journaling Techniques
These are some journaling techniques you might consider:
Technique | Description | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
Stream of Consciousness / Free-Writing | Write continuously for a set time (e.g., 5–15 minutes) without stopping, editing, or worrying about grammar. If you get stuck, write "I don’t know what to write" over and over until something else flows. | Helps to get conscious thoughts out, unearth deeper ideas, overcome writer's block, and clear the mind. |
Morning Pages | A specific free-writing practice, requiring filling exactly one side of paper, stream-of-consciousness style, first thing every day. | Calms anxieties, produces insights, and facilitates breakthroughs by making you push past the boring and obvious. |
Gratitude Journaling | List things you are grateful for, focusing on what is working in your life. Be specific (depth over breadth) and focus on people rather than things for greater impact. | Improves mental well-being, mood, and optimism. |
Reflective Writing | Write down what happened (facts only), how you felt (feelings only), and what you will do next time if faced with a similar situation. You can also ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well, and what you are learning. | Addresses negative thoughts in a simple way and helps you learn from experience. |
CBT Thought Record | See below | |
Prompt-Based Writing | See below |
CBT Thought Record
It's a common issue that when you simply write down negative feelings, you can sometimes worsen the problem – you make the feelings tangible, but offer no resolution. The CBT Thought Record is a powerful, structured journaling exercise, derived from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, that solves this problem by forcing your thoughts out of an abstract, noisy state and into a cognitive domain where they can be systematically analysed and worked through. The purpose of this method is specifically to help you identify, address, and ultimately change your reactions to challenging situations.
Structure and Steps of a CBT Thought Record
This approach organises your reflective process, typically using seven steps or "columns" to move you logically from the triggering event to a balanced, helpful assessment.
1. Situation / Trigger: You must start by laying out the facts of the event, detailing where and when it happened, and who was involved. This situation could be an external event, a feeling, a memory, or an initial thought itself.
2. Initial Reaction: Describe the emotional and physical feelings you had in the moment, making sure to rate the intensity of these feelings on a scale of 0 to 100%.
3. Negative Automatic Thoughts (NATs) / Hot Thought: Here, you list any negative or unhelpful thoughts you noticed. Crucially, you then circle the single thought that most closely identifies with your mood – this is your “hot thought” (e.g., "I am completely useless").
4. Supporting Evidence: This step requires absolute objectivity. You must record only hard, factual evidence – data, probabilities, and percentages – that factually supports the "hot thought," strictly avoiding all interpretations or opinions.
5. Opposing Evidence: In the same objective manner, you now record hard evidence – just facts and data – that directly contradicts or opposes the "hot thought."
6. Balanced Alternative Thought: Using the evidence you've gathered for and against the hot thought, you develop a more helpful and realistic way of thinking about the situation. If you find the "hot thought" is largely true, you must then develop a plan to address the necessary action. You then rate the intensity of this new thought on a scale of 0 to 100%.
7. Outcome / Learning: Finally, you re-rate your initial mood (from Step 2) and document any new moods that appeared. This final step involves reflecting on what you can learn from the experience to potentially pre-empt the situation in the future.
By systematically examining your thoughts and reframing them, the thought record directly addresses cognitive distortions, forcing you to ask questions like: "Is this a factually accurate, logical and helpful interpretation?". This technique is effective because it focuses on two areas proven to be most helpful: the good things about yourself, and what is within your power to change.
Prompt-based writing
You know that moment when you sit down to journal, determined to get something down, and all you get is a stare-down from a blank page? Prompt-based writing is a journaling technique specifically designed to solve that problem. It is a structured practice where you respond to a specific question, statement, quote, or idea – the "prompt".
Purpose and Benefits of Using Prompts
The core benefit of using a prompt is that it helps you overcome the initial difficulty of figuring out what to write. It is an ideal way to:
Reduce Pressure and Overcome Blocks: Prompts help take the pressure off you by giving you a clear, defined subject to respond to. They are highly effective for days when you're staring at that blank page thinking, "I don’t know what to write", helping you overcome that common form of writer's block.
Facilitate Reflection and Focus: For those who find undirected stream-of-consciousness writing difficult, the prompt provides a necessary focus. It essentially acts as a low-stakes "door to reflection" without making you feel like you are performing or struggling to start. Using them can kickstart your session and get your thoughts flowing without self-editing.
Examples of Prompts and Prompt-Based Methods
Prompts are incredibly flexible, ranging from simple starting phrases to highly structured therapeutic questions:
Self-Reflective Questions: These guide your introspection with questions like, "What’s taking up most of my mental space right now?" or "What did I notice, feel, or learn today?". They can be as simple as filling in the blank: "Right now, I feel…"
Structured Journaling Methods: Techniques like The Five Minute Journal use a specific set of daily prompts, such as, "What Am I Grateful for?" and "What Would Make Today Great?".
General Ideas: A prompt might simply encourage you to explore personal or career goals, things and people you are grateful for, or reflections on your past self.
Prompts are typically best in the form of questions. You can come up with your own prompts, you can search online for prompts, or you can partner up with your preferred LLM and ask it to prompt you with questions (reverse prompting?).
Key Principles for Effective Journaling
These are a few general principles to get the most out of journaling:
· Be Honest and Authentic: Don’t censor yourself; show up with what's real.
· Let Go of Judgment: Don't obsess over writing quality. Your thoughts can be half-finished, and your grammar can be a mess. You are writing for your eyes only, not for a grade.
· Go Beyond Surface Level: To achieve personal growth, reflect on the "why" questions. Shallow journaling that only records events misses opportunities to learn; you should dive deeper into your thoughts.
· Focus on the Process, Not Productivity: It's important to remember that the most powerful entries are sometimes the ones that don't go anywhere or solve a problem immediately.
· Maintain Privacy: If you are worried someone might read what you wrote, use a digital journal with a password, hide your physical journal, or even tear out pages when you're done. Privacy creates the safe frame needed for uninhibited expression.
· Review Your Entries: Periodically look back to identify patterns and insights. This acts as a personal roadmap for tracking your growth, seeing how your values shift, and noticing how you responded to similar challenges.
Conclusion
The final takeaway is a simple one: journaling is far more than just writing things down. It’s an act of self-communication that fundamentally bolsters your ability to navigate a complex world. By giving yourself the time and space to capture your thoughts, analyse your reactions, and reflect on the why behind your experiences, you are consistently choosing to exercise your own agency and autonomy. There’s no perfect way to start. Pick a method that resonates with you. Then, be honest, commit to those two, five or more minutes, and begin the simple, powerful process of taking back control of your inner world, one reflective entry at a time.