When you’re trying to practice self-care and self-improvement, you’ve probably heard two things – practice mindfulness, and start using a journal.
Why are these often included in the list of tips? Because of how useful they are! Not only can you be more mindful on a daily basis and use a traditional type of journal for helping improve your life one step at a time, but you can combine them and utilize the unique benefits of a bullet journal.
In this post, you’ll learn all about bullet journaling, mindfulness, and how to combine them to help become the person you want to be. Take your time, absorb this information, and think of how you can utilize these tips in your own life.
Why Mindfulness?
Before looking at how to combine mindfulness and your bullet journal, it helps to first understand a little bit more about being more mindful, what it means, and how it works. This might seem a little confusing in the beginning, but there are many benefits for your mental and physical health, so it’s worth it for everyone to learn more about mindful practices.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is simple – it’s when you’re focusing on living only in the present. What you focus on is the here and now, whether that’s what you are eating, thinking about, doing, or listening to. You learn how to appreciate what is happening at this very moment instead of dwelling on the past or worrying too much about the future.
You want to use mindfulness to become more in tune with yourself and be aware of your feelings and thoughts at all times, instead of just pushing them aside to focus on other things. It can really help you become a more self-aware person that expresses gratitude and live a more fulfilling existence.
It Improves Your Self-Awareness
The first reason you should start practicing mindfulness, especially with your bullet journal, is that it can help you to really find that self-awareness you are looking for. This is an important part of any self-improvement journey, allowing you to look deep in your subconscious, figure out where your thoughts and feelings are coming from, and reflect on them as much as possible.
You Can Reduce Anxiety
Mindfulness has also been shown to be very successful at helping to relieve anxiety. For many people, anxiety and panic attacks come from overthinking or being fearful of certain situations. You can actually stop a panic attack dead in its track with enough practice by using mindfulness.
Typically, if you start feeling the signs of a panic attack coming on, you would start telling yourself where you are, that it is only your anxiety, that you are fine and in a safe place, and with enough practice, this can help to calm you down enough to where the panic doesn’t escalate from there.
It Helps Improve Your Memory Function
This might be one of the more surprising benefits of mindfulness. You can actually boost your memory function and concentration by practicing mindfulness. This is a benefit of doing it daily, on a regular basis, and preferably multiple times a day.
The more you really focus and concentrate on things and feelings throughout the day, the easier it becomes to recall them later on. You are training your brain to hold onto memories for longer periods of time, which can help in many different facets of your life.
Quick Introduction to Bullet Journaling
Now that you understand a little more about mindfulness and how it can be effective at improving your life, let’s discuss the bullet journal. Perhaps you aren’t sure what this type of journal is, or are just a little confused about why it would help you with mindfulness.
Here is a brief introduction about bullet journals:
What is a Bullet Journal?
A bullet journal is a type of journal and planner that allows you to simplify and organize your life. It’s complex in how much you can do with it, but you can make it very simple when you are using it for mindfulness.
With a bullet journal, you have different sections dedicated to calendars, planners, task lists, journaling, and anything else you want to include.
When Did Bullet Journals Start?
While many people have jotted down notes in a way similar to how people use their bullet journals today, there was never really a way to describe it. However, around 2013, Ryder Carroll officially invented the bullet journal and began sharing his ideas with the world.
He was a digital product designer who live in New York, and had trouble keeping up with his own demanding lifestyle. He would use many of the practices you see used bullet journaling, and decided others might also benefit from it.
It’s important to note that you can turn the bullet journal into anything you want, but in the following sections we’ll talk about using it specifically for mindfulness and developing a healthier mindset for a healthier life.
How a Bullet Journal Helps
Now for the part you want to know – how exactly do you practice mindfulness with your bullet journal? The reason the bullet journal can be so useful is because it allows you to not just organize your life, but really focus on each part of your life, which is going to be the core of mindfulness
Practicing Mindfulness One Page at a Time
As we discussed previously, mindfulness is all about living in the moment. You’re really practicing a lot of self-awareness by understanding your thoughts, feelings, and experiences in any given moment – even in focusing on what you’re reading right now.
This can be anything from being at work to reading a book or just eating a meal. You are appreciating the moment, studying it, and living deep within it, instead of just mindlessly going from task to task.
When you practice mindfulness with a bullet journal, each page and section of that journal is allowing you to focus more on what you are writing about. For example, if you have a section dedicated to short-term and long-term goals, you’re not just going to list them and move on, but look at each goal, and really study it.
Focus on it.
Create a plan to achieve it.
The Different Ways of Using Mindfulness
Another important aspect of using the bullet journal is that it can provide several different ways to be used for mindfulness. This will depend on you and what your main goals are.
Maybe you’re trying to lose weight and you feel that your mindset is keeping you from it. You can start not only practicing mindfulness during each meal to eat more intuitively to get away from emotional eating, but you can record your food in the bullet journal which is going to help you focus on it even more.
As we move on, think about the different ways a bullet journal can benefit you as it applies to mindfulness. Make a list of reasons WHY you need to be more mindful in your life, and you might discover some different ways your bullet journal can be useful to you.
Guide to Being More Mindful with a Bullet Journal
At this point, you have a better understanding of what mindfulness is, how it works, and how it can benefit you. You also now have a good idea of using the bullet journal, but we want to give you some more details.
The following tips and suggestions will offer a more in-depth look to using your bullet journal for mindfulness and creating a positive mindset moving forward in your life. This is going to be very useful for self-improvement and personal growth.
Start with a Minimal Bullet Journal
If you don’t yet have a bullet journal you want to use, then this is a good idea to start with a very simple one. You don’t need to worry about all the different pages and sections other people focus on, but instead only include sections specifically designed to help with your self-improvement journey.
The first thing to remember when setting it up is that you want more free and empty pages for writing, note-taking, and sketches. These are going to be used for mindfulness and will really allow you to use it both as a traditional journal and a bullet journal.
Many bullet journals are only for rapid logging and lists and calendars, but for the sake of mindfulness, you want more free pages throughout the journal to jot down longer sections of notes. This allows you to live more mindfully and express your thoughts and feelings for better self-reflection.
Use Calendar Pages and Lists to Your Advantage
Since you’re using a bullet journal instead of a traditional journal for your mindfulness journey, you’re still going to have some pages dedicated to rapid logging. Calendar pages and lists can also be really helpful for this. It will allow you to reflect on your goals and tasks that need to be done, without causing added stress because you might miss something.
This is typically where it turns into a planner and a journal. But how does this help with being more mindful? If you are able to look at your calendar for the week or month and know exactly what needs to be done and when, you are able to free your mind from the stress of thinking you need to get more done during any particular moment. This allows you to relax a little more and be mindful of what is happening in any given moment.
As you begin using your bullet journal more, you’ll start to understand how beneficial it can actually be. You’ll also be able to have simple tracker pages, so if you want to record your feelings, fears, or worries at any given moment, you can do so quickly and easily with those bullet journal sections.
More Recommended Sections
Depending on the size of your journal and what your personal preferences are, there are some other sections that can also be useful for the purpose of being more mindful and changing your mindset to be more positive. Here are a few sections to try to include if you called:
Daily Affirmations
If you can only fit in one more section in your bullet journal, this should definitely be it. Affirmations are phrases or sentences that help you feel positive and inspired. They can really help you to become more mindful and train your mind to be positive on a regular basis. These can be affirmations you make up yourself or that you find elsewhere.
Inspirational Quotes
Don’t forget about your inspirational quotes! Have a collection of quotes that help you feel inspired to a better person, change the way you think about certain things, and really just be a happy, fulfilled person all around. Here are some quotes to get you started:
“The Pessimist Sees Difficulty In Every Opportunity. The Optimist Sees Opportunity In Every Difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
“We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.” – Maya Angelou
“Whether You Think You Can Or Think You Can’t, You’re Right.” – Henry Ford
“Whether You Think You Can Or Think You Can’t, You’re Right.” – Henry Ford
Inspiring People or Things
Is there someone or something in your life that always inspires you to be better? If so, write it down! Talk about that person, discuss the event that changed your perspective. This can be an ongoing list that you continue adding to when you find new things, people, or situations that you believe will help you on your journey to being a more mindful person.
Creating a Mindfulness Layout
The last bit of advice for your mindful bullet journal is to choose a mindfulness layout specifically meant for this purpose. You can use this layout on multiple pages that is going to ask you to describe what is happening right now. Write down the date, then list what you are feeling, what you are thinking about, how the day is going, describing each sensation and each thought. It is a great tool to be used in your journal.
