Journaling has not always been the most glamorous or hobby that a lot of people want to acquire. It is like reading, a lot of people want to do it, but don' thave the time. It takes understanding, and a lot of introspectiveness to start journaling, but here is how writing all of your thoughts and what you go through day by day can help you in the long run.

It makes you open yourself up

I started journaling just a few short months ago, for after years of stopping and I realized how much of a form of therapy it can be. Before I hadn't written in ten years before I started writing for the Odyssey, but when I was younger I would write short stories, I had actually written a short novella about a ten-year-old girl who lived with a big family in Philadelphia- resembling my mom's childhood. Looking back, I'm not sure why I stopped because writing stories because it brought out my creativity. Speaking of which,,,,

It could open up a creative side of yourself

Jotting down a few short sentences, or writing three pages about your day every night, could open up and jump start a creative part of your brain. Writing a little bit every night could spiral into having your own blog, begin another hobby you have always wanted to do, or check things off a bucket list. The options are endless when you finally begin to do something you have thought about for so long.

Keeping record of everything that you may not remember years later

A lot can happen in a day, and we don't always remember everything, so scribbling down importing stuff you need to get off your chest, something funny that happened that you want to remember years later. Looking back years later and reading what you were going through at the moment and seeing how much you have changed and grown from that time in your life is a wonderful thing.

Journaling isn't just a way to get things off your chest or to start it because it's something more and more people are doing, it opens our creativity and makes us see things in a new way. Just becasue its a new year, doesnt mean we have to keep sticking to our old routines.