Self-Awareness:
At Georgetown, you are overwhelmed with abundant opportunities happening on campus every day. The FOMO (fear of missing out) feeling kicks in as you may want to take advantage of every single opportunity. However, that is not sustainable. Journaling allows for me to evaluate the opportunities and ask myself what are the things I actually want to do.
Besides the external events, journaling is a great practice to help reflect internally on the things in my life that I am grateful for. For instance, there are times as a college student when it difficulty and we may feel depressed, sad, angry, or scared due to pressure to succeed in academics, professional, and socially. But with journaling, it allows for a realization of how grateful we are to be at Georgetown and have the privilege of continuing our higher education.
Also, there times when you may need to relax from the pressures of others, and listen to your mind and body. Journaling allows you to ask the question: what do I need? It makes you ask yourself questions that you would normally ignore. Is my health where it needs to be? Are my relationships with my family stable? Taking the time to be aware of where you stand.
Daily Goal Setting:
When it comes to the upcoming deadlines that are approaching from academics or clubs, it is hard to clearly identify what are the priorities. Not identifying the priorities will get me behind as it will cause me to not properly execute my time effectively.
Simply setting up three goals for the day will ensure that I focus my day on what really matters and know what I need to get done today to be successful for tomorrow. Then, later at night I will review my daily goals and check if I achieved them. If not, figure out a way to achieve them next time and analyzing what went wrong and how to do better next time.
Using journaling as a tool to stay on top of your goals will give direction and guidance to your day.
Making History:
Another added benefit is that you can document the events in your life that are important and meaningful. Having journaled since Summer of 2017, I can look back and see the obstacles and struggles that I have overcome. When I feel I am struggling, I look back at those moments and see how far I have come to motivate me to overcome my current goals.
Besides the motivational factor, it great to save the memories in a journal to look back to and remember how you specifically viewed certain events and experiences.