5 Easy Steps for Starting a Journaling Practice

PUBLISHED Sep 9th, 2019 & UPDATED ON Feb 14th, 2023

Now that you know what journaling is, the benefits, the answers to frequently asked questions as well as journaling prompts to get you started, let’s talk about how to set up your own journaling practice.

1. Pick Out a Beautiful Journal (or Not)

Whenever you’re looking to form a new habit, it’s essential to set yourself up for success. Some of us may thrive from journaling in a super cute journal. Unfortunately, it won’t be made of holly and have a phoenix feather at its core, but a beautiful journal that reflects your personality could be what we need to jump-start your practice.

Or, it couldn’t, and scrap paper is all you need. That’s cool, too.

2. Carve Out Time in Your Schedule (and Add It to Your Calendar)

We’re busy. You’re busy. Everyone’s busy.

While it’s essential to recognize that taking time for yourself is a privilege that not all of us can afford, it’s important to be intentional with that privilege. We make time for what we make time for. We’d probably have a lot more time if we didn’t watch hours’ worth of Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns, but here we are.

If you can, carve out time in your schedule for journaling. Add it to your calendar. Set up reminders for yourself. Be proactive in starting a journaling practice so you can make it stick.

One thing our Divers love about the DiveThru app is that you can set a notification reminder for when you want to journal (or as we call it, DiveThru). You can download the DiveThru app and get started for free here.

3. Establish Your Why

We all have motivations behind what we do. We watch reruns of Brooklyn Nine-Nine because it soothes our souls. We move our bodies because we love them (if your motives for exercise are a bit crueller than this reason, we have a Dive for that).

When it comes to sticking to your journaling practice, it’s crucial to establish your why. So, we’ll ask you… Why do you want to start a journaling practice?

4. Share Your Journey with Others

Starting any habit is hard. Starting a habit of eating ice cream every day is easier (and more delicious) than one surrounding journaling. For that reason, it’s important to share your journey with others. Here at DiveThru, we’re alllll about community. Seriously, it’s one of our core values. Why? Well because we get it. We all have stuff that we need to DiveThru, and that stuff can be messy. We so often feel alone in our journey, and we don’t want you to feel that way anymore.

Our DiveThru Together Community Group is all about connecting YOU with people who are journaling (and diving thru), too. Within the group, we laugh together, cry together, and do what we can to keep one another accountable. We’re also all about uplifting each other because it’s cool to be kind.

You can join the group by clicking here.

5. Download a Journaling App

There’s an app for everything – including your journaling practice! While a lot of the journaling apps on the market get you to journal into the app, it’s best to find a hybrid.

Introducing: DiveThru.

DiveThru is a guided journaling app rooted in journaling therapy. For that reason, we get you to journal but ensure you do it in written form. This helps you truly reap the benefits associated with journaling. Don’t fret, you can still input your summaries into the app to review later and track your journey. You can also do quick check-ins throughout your day when you don’t have the chance to get a big journaling session in.

Best part? It’s free to download and get started!

You can download the DiveThru app here.