I love journaling and if you need some convincing as to why you should too then check out my post on how journaling can help you right now! One of my favorite reasons to journal is because it can help you learn about yourself. The past couple of weeks I’ve been all over the place trying to figure out what I want to do with my life career-wise. All of my passions are in areas that typically see very little pay and my chronic pain also makes it difficult to imagine any change to what I’m doing right now. So I thought I would do the sensible thing and go back to school via an online program for my masters in public health. It made logical sense to me because I would get to help others while also being able to make enough money to live off of. I’m extremely passionate about helping others be healthy and working for the government or FDA down the line to help create new health standards or revise old ones interested me.
Well, the universe rarely goes as planned because I didn’t get in. My bachelors degree is in psychology and apparently those classes aren’t close enough to what a public health degree would involve. I beg to differ, but that’s not really my point here. They wanted me to take non-matriculated courses that are quite expensive and without any financial aid since I wouldn’t be a student. I would have to take these classes to prove that I could do the course work involved in their program and even then I may not be accepted. I agonized about it for days. I kept going back and forth in my head on whether or not to just rack my credit cards up paying for this schooling that may or may not get me accepted into this program. So I did what I always do when I’m confused. I journaled.
I just let all the thoughts that were bouncing around in my head onto paper and then looked them over. Something I realized when reading over my writing was that I had a real hesitancy about putting a huge amount of money into my masters in public health, but I would easily have spent the same amount on other things. The epiphany I had was that, although close, public health was not quite where my passion was at. About 6 months ago I did the first journal prompt I’m going to give you below. I went back to look at what my perfect day looked like and it didn’t involve going to board meetings or talking about laws. My perfect day involved helping others directly and really seeing the difference I could make. I didn’t want to be so far removed from the process. I was only doing what was logical instead of what my heart was telling me to do.
So a couple days ago I enrolled in a program to earn my personal trainer certification and then I’ll get my health coach certification once I have that. Does that make sense monetarily? Probably not. Very few people can make a living off of those certifications, but it allows me to have the credentials necessary to back up my information that I provide to all of you, it’s a topic I want to learn more about for myself, it will allow me to actually help others and, most of all, I’m passionate about it. So I’ll keep my day job and make personal training and being a health coach a side hustle and work my butt off to try and make it my career. All of that hard work sounds so much more fun and worthwhile then going back to school and spending 30k+ on a degree I’m not that passionate about. I’m not ruling out anything. Maybe one day getting my masters in public health will be what my soul calls me to, but right now I’m on a different path.
So if you’re confused and need some guidance on life or if you just want to learn more about yourself for the sake of learning try out my journal prompts below! If you need a new journal check out my favorite right here.
If you enjoyed these prompts let me know below and please share with your friends! Did they help you learn anything about yourself?
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I’ve been wanting to start a wellness journal for a. Long time. These are some great prompts!
Author
That would be a great place to start. I hope you do and thanks so much for the compliment.
This is great advice, I write journals, but never really thought about going back to them and re-reading them. They were just somewhere I could get my thoughts out and then not think about again or for a while. It makes so much sense that re-reading them at a different time may give me a different perspective of my thoughts back then. Thanks for this awakening.
Author
Happy to give you ideas!
I’m not a huge “journal-er” but it does have awesome benefits- especially to ease anxiety! Jealous that you’re already into the habit!
Author
Yeah, the benefits are what keeps me coming back! It took me about 30 days to really make it a habit. I outline that in my other post here I believe. Once I started getting into a groove with it my night felt incomplete without it.
Brilliant post
fablemoonsays.com
Author
Thank you very much!
I like this idea about journaling for getting to know yourself. I’m a teacher and I think that this would be a great free write activity to do with some of the older grades. We practice a lot of reflecting and this could be part of the process. It is quite often that we set out to do things without knowing if it is the right fit in the long run. It’s so hard to really know yourself, especially when you are young. Perhaps that’s why the universe sometimes doesn’t give up what we want. Thanks for sharing this. It got my wheels turning!
Author
I would have loved this if a teacher did this for me in HS! I may have started journaling more faithfully in my younger years. Self-knowledge is a concept that is never really taught and I think some people spend their entire lives trying to gain that skill without knowing exactly how. Kudos if you put this into your lesson plan!
What a great post and something that I’m needing as well. Oftentimes the heart and the head want two different things and then we try to rationalize what the head is telling us to do. Well, the heart always knows along with some intuition, I think. Loved that you figured out a way to listen to that inner voice through journaling. I’m so glad that you came to an AHA moment that was right for you at this time. I love your journaling prompts and am going to pin this post for future reference with a decision that I’m trying to make as well. Thanks so much for sharing!
Author
I’m so glad it was helpful and thanks so much for the response. I hope it helps you on your decision making process!
I’ve tried journaling for a little but never really know what to write about. Now I have something to start with. Thanks! 🙂
Author
You’re very welcome. I think having some prompts always helps to get things moving.
You sound more like me, first of all is always good to do that which is going to make you happy and keep you happy in life. since you dont have passion for public health, you will be unfair to yourself and to that which you are passionate about if you go ahead and study public health. The reason why i said you sound more like me is that i have always been putting my thought in a book ever since i was small and the strange about that was that i use to tell myself that i hate writing without knowing that i will one day have passion for writing. and now its one of the things that makes me happy and occupy my days.
Author
That’s so lovely and thank you for the positive feedback. I appreciate it tremendously!
I found an app and made a point to log an entry into it every day this year. It really is great for self discovery and reflection
Author
I love that. Would you mind sharing what app?
I feel like journaling is really therapeutic. It’s great to write down thoughts like that.
Author
I totally agree!
This is so great! Writing is one of my favorites and self-exploration is such a great practice.
Author
Writing is the best and it totally is. Glad there’s others out there who enjoy it as much as me!
I used to love writing prompts in school!
Author
Yeah, I either get all my writing ideas from prompts, my life or some kind of serotonin induced epiphany.
Awesome prompts! Definitely Pinning this for later. I go back and forth with journaling but I can definitely say that I do learn so much about myself and have more insight into my moods, decisions, and motivations!
Author
Aw thanks so much. I’m the same way. Only in the last couple years since I’ve had chronic pain have I really made an effort to journal regularly. Keeps me sane 🙂
Writing prompts are awesome but now I need time to write them!
Author
Ain’t that always the problem! 🙂 Good luck!