One of my 2018 New Years’ resolutions was to write in a daily happiness journal. Unlike most resolutions I set at the start of the new year, I actually stuck with this one for all of 2018! I learned a few things along the way, and I learned even more once I went back in and actually read everything I wrote down over the course of the year. Here are some of the top things I took away from the daily habit.
Writing helps with mindfulness.
I wrote about ways to bring mindfulness into your life in a previous post. What I didn’t realize then, though, was that writing in a journal helps you be more mindful. When you force yourself to write daily about something that made you happy, you find yourself actively looking for ways to be happy throughout the day.
Here’s the cool part: your ability to notice the things that bring you joy on a daily basis is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. At the start of this exercise, I found it pretty tough to find something that made me happy each and every day, especially if I had a particularly bad day. After a while though, I began to notice that I could more easily pick things out that made me happy, even on days when I wasn’t in a great mood.
It’s the small things in life that matter most.
Contrary to most people’s Instagram profiles, not every day can be legendary. The fact is, most days are going to be average. When you’re documenting happiness on a daily basis though, you start to notice over time that your happiness has nothing to do with just “the big stuff.”
When I look back through my journal, here are the kinds of things I found myself documenting most often:
- Watching Phoebe, our puppy, play with a twig in the field
- Learning a new kata in karate class
- Finding out that an old colleague wants to work for me
- That first sip of beer after helping a friend move
- Catching up with old friends
- Going Leroy Jenkins in a scary escape room
- Enjoying a beautiful sunrise while I walk the dog
- Going for a hike with my family
- Meditating in perfect silence
- And so on.
Notice how none of these things says anything like “Climbed a mountain” or “Jumped out of a plane” – I mean, the days those things happen, yeah. I’m documenting that. But that’s the thing: most days, things like that don’t happen. Stuff like the above does. And the more I wrote it down, the easier it became to notice it. Hell, today’s journal log will include me just reading all of the past year’s entries – that brought me happiness right there.
Writing consistently for a year teaches you about you.
When you write about the things that make you happy for a while, you start to notice patterns when you go back through the list. These are things that tend to pop up over and over again in your happiness log. It’s worth paying attention to these things; sometimes you learn something about yourself that you didn’t know.
Here’s a great example on my end: many of my daily logs came from time spent with people who matter to me. Laughing together, working together, or just being together, it didn’t matter: I’m at my best when I’m spending time with the people I care about. I’ve always known that to some extent, but I never really knew how central it was to my daily well-being until I began writing about it.
Wrapping it Up
I’ve broken a lot of New Years’ resolutions in my life. Like, a lot. I’m really glad I stuck with this one, though. Even on days when I’m down, I know I can look around me and find something that will make me happy. Finding that one small thing is often enough to turn my day around. That right there makes the whole thing worth it. If you’re looking for a New Years’ resolution for 2019, why not give writing in a happiness journal a try? Who knows… it might actually make you happier!
