Taking care of yourself is vital to ensure you’re working at your optimum. Whether it’s your physical or mental health, they both play a huge role in determining how well you function every day.
Why not use your bullet journal as a self-care journal to make sure you take a few minutes in the day to look after yourself.gr
With all the hustling and running around to complete other tasks and making sure they’re perfect, you need to also make sure you are doing fine.
Having a self-care bullet journal will no doubt make your life more comfortable when you give yourself a little love.
Here’s a well thought out guide that goes into details of self-care journaling from the how’s to the why’s and even inspirational ideas to try.
1. What Is Self Care?
Before we get started, let’s look at a quick definition as to what is self-care?
Self-care is the act of participating in a set of activities that will ensure you relax and lower stress levels. It’s a means to sit back, take a few minutes in the day, away from distraction and only focusing on yourself.
According to Psych Central, self-care is important to improve our moods and one of the key ways to reduce anxiety. Whatever makes you feel calm and relaxed, these self-care activities will ensure you stay healthy and fit both mentally and physically.
A self-care journal, on the other hand, is intended to be used as a reminder and a way to schedule your self-care activities.
You can use a self-care journal or even a few spreads included in your bullet journal to find new ways to pamper yourself and relax.
2. What Does Self Care Entail
We all know how purposeful it is to take care of other people and ensure their wellbeing is at its highest but we do need to take care of ourselves first so that we’re at our best too.
We all know how purposeful it is to take care of other people and ensure their wellbeing is at its highest but we do need to take care of ourselves first so that we’re at our best too.
Self-care could entail many things and this could be reading a book, sipping on a cup of tea outside, talking a walk, listening to music, or even having a dance session or spa treatment.
Here’s a full list of self-care ideas to try (besides the ones mentioned above) or an idea of the many different activities you can incorporate into your daily schedule that won’t draw away too much time from other chores:
- Workout
- Yoga
- Take a hot shower/soak in the tub
- Get a massage
- Light a scented candle
- Take a walk in the fresh air
- Watch the sun go down
- Watch a feel-good movie
- Journal
- Take a quick nap
- Try a new hobby like painting, drawing, and gardening
There are over a hundred ways to take care of yourself and relax. Honestly, the options are ripe for the picking!
You just have to pick the best ones while also trying new activities to taste what works for you. Who knows, the next new activity you try might end up being your next favorite.
3. Ways To Use A Self Care Journal
I’m sure you’re already familiar with the many ways to use a journal in general but if you’re looking for a few more reasons to convince you as to why including self-care pages in your journal is important, I’m sure you’ll be determined to try it once you’ve read the following:
Explore your feelings
Using a journal to take note of how you’re feeling can have a positive impact on helping you heal and discover more about yourself.
If you’ve already experienced the benefits of daily journaling, then I’m sure you already know how great it is.
You can also create a happy list that is basically a list of activities that will make YOU feel good for example, like this one:
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My happy list ???? things to do while I have some spare time or am in need of a pep ?
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Journaling about your thoughts and feelings will help you identify certain triggers and factors that can change. Certain thoughts can be used to view situations in a different light.
Become more aware
Often at times, we’re unable to think straight when we’re wrapped up in our emotions but journaling can be used to help us become more aware of things and can be used as a warning to avoid future incidents as such.
It can also be used to identify the moments when you’re overworking yourself, carrying too much on your plate, discover ways to help you change things that are absorbing too much energy.
Be grateful and mindful
When you’re always on the run and constantly busy either with work or house chores, it’s easy to forget the things that we should be mindful of.
Having a gratitude list will help remind you of positive aspects that are there especially when you’re feeling down or need a quick pick me up.
When you write at least one thing to be grateful for first thing in the morning or before your go to bed, this will encourage you to look towards the world with a positive mindset that will otherwise help you feel lighter.
Get rid of negative thinking
A self-care journal is a useful tool to help rid yourself of negative thoughts. It’s so easy to think we’re not good enough or view something in a less attractive way.
We may not look forward to the next day because of something that had occurred in the previous day but by using positive thinking, we can indeed change our feelings.
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I love to use my journal to challenge my negative thoughts. We have thousands of thoughts running around our head every single day and it can become incredibly busy up there.
However, there are times when a particular thing is troubling me and I find that writing those words onto a page and trying to find positive arguments to these negative thoughts can be freeing.
4. How To Start A Self Care Journal
Now that you have an overall idea as to what self-care is about and what it entails, let’s get started on creating a self – care journal. It’s incredibly simple and easy!
Step 1: Grab Your Notebook
The first thing you need to decide is where you’ll want to add these self-care pages. You could use an ordinary notebook or add them to a current bullet journal.
But our recommendation is theLeuchtturm1917 Medium A5or thisDotted Grid Journalthat is madly raved about by every bullet journaler.
Either way is totally fine and it all depends on what you prefer to use.
Step 2: Gather Your Supplies
For these spreads, you’ll need a few supplies such as pens, markers, stickers to decorate, and inspirational printouts of pictures that will make you tempted to immediately try that next self-care activity.
Step 3: Have a List of Topics
We haven’t gotten into detail of the kinds of self-care pages to include just yet but you’ll see them in just a bit.
On a separate piece of paper, you can write down all the page ideas you’d like to include in your bullet journal, for instance, a brain dump, vision board, 30-minute self-care reference guide, or even a log to track your progress.
This way you won’t feel lost on what to journal about and you’ll have a good idea of where and how you want these pages to turn out like.
Step 4: Begin Your First Self-Care Spread
Here comes the fun part, starting your first spread. You could create a cover page listed self-care to separate these entries from the others or include them as you go along each month.
There really isn’t any need to have these pages listed in order but you can categorize them if you’re a lover of being organized.
Just remember to include as many self-love and self-care activities that ensure you treat yourself like gold because you deserve it!
Additional Spread Layouts To Try
If you’re like me and love to watch bullet journaling videos to get a step by step idea on how to format your page layouts:
Here’s a useful video I found that will show you stunning page ideas for self-care (including scrapbooking and doodle ideas!):
5. Prompts To Use In A Self Care Journal
Here’s a smart trick I learned that will ensure you always have something to journal about and honestly I’ve been talking about this quite often in many of the previous posts.
That is the use of prompts – any good prompt will save you from the woos of journaling slumps and you’ll never be bored again.
Also, journaling about something so specific such as self-care is a little challenging in coming up with new ideas to explore but with this list, you’ll surely have something to try.
1. Who’s the person that inspires you the most?
2. Which quality do you admire the most about yourself?
3. Describe your perfect day
4. What brings you incredible joy?
5. How can you love yourself today?
6. List 5 things that you love about the world
7. Write a letter to yourself
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8. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
9. What made you smile today?
10. Reflect on the greatest moment you’ve experienced
6. Self-Care Page Ideas & Inspiration
Discover the ultimate inspiration for your own self-care bullet journal with these gorgeous and innovative page ideas.
I know how hard it is to come up with ideas on your own when you’re a beginner but what I found is that when you draw inspiration from these spreads, new ideas start popping up and your creativity expands.
However, simply looking at these ideas from fellow bullet journalists it motivates you to put your best in each spread that you create.
Incorporate Your Self Care Into Your Daily Life
Reset Spread and Tracker Idea viaPlan For Productivity
If you’re running out of pages or maybe you don’t want to have that many pages dedicated to self-care, then this quick on the go spread will remind you of everything you need to do in your normal day to day life while also ensuring that taking care of yourself becomes a priority.
This spread involves 4 steps to living at your optimum: recap, reset, restart, and recharge.She also has this exact page spread on her shop, so do check it out!
Master List of Self-Care Ideas
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Close up of the self care ideas page I made the other day ❤ #bulletjournal
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Add this full list of self-care ideas and activities you can try on your day off. You can use this page to reference when you’ve run out of ideas on things to do or to simply try new and interesting activities.
A 30 – Minute Self Care Plan
If you really want to have at least 30 minutes of self-love and care in a day, try including this spread idea from Page Flutter that created the perfect way to find out exactly what you need to care for yourself in just a few minutes each day.
You can follow each line to try a different activity depending on what you need in a particular moment, whether that’s rest, companionship, or to just relax.
Mental Health Tracker
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Keep track of the way your body is coping and how you’re feeling overall.Maybe you need to improve the quality of your sleep or get more exercise with a simple walk or stretch before bed.
This will be able to track your habits and make improvements where it’s needed.
A Highlight of My Day Page
This page idea by Well Ella will challenge you to find at least one good moment of the day that will keep you positive and excited for the next day.
There are always so many things to make us smile and we’re surrounded by good things yet it’s easy to fall into the habit and lure of negativity.
Use this page as a memorable guide of the things you did and where you’ve been so later on when you look back, you’ll be thrilled to see how active you were.
Mood Trackers
Having a mood tracker page is also useful to explore your emotions and feelings every day. It’s also a fun daily activity to try and a great way to keep bullet journaling more often.
Recommended: Bullet Journal Mood Trackers: 18 Spread Ideas You’ll Love
Gratitude Logs
A daily gratitude log will make sure you’re always remembering the small things to be grateful about.
Whether it’s the sun shining, having food to eat, pretty clothes to wear, a loving family, your pet, whatever strikes love with you, write them down.
Your day will be filled with positivity and it will serve as a reminder if any difficult situation occurs.
Compliments Page
We all need a pick me up from time to time and this does not need to come from other people!
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Give yourself a few compliments every day and you’ll definitely notice an improvement in your mood and self-confidence.
It will also encourage you to go easy on yourself with just the use of a few kind words.
A Brain Dump
Remove stressful thoughts or ideas that are weighing in your mind with the use of a brain tracker.
Here you need to ‘dump’ any thought or task you need to do without editing or overthinking.
If you need a full tutorial on this, try our brain dump guide that will show fantastic ideas and ways to start!
Books To Read
Having a few pages dedicated to reading in your journal will be added benefit especially if you love to read and it’s your way of destressing and relaxing.
You can either have a cute spread of book doodles to indicate the books to be read or have a table listing all the books you’ve read for the year.
Related:How To Start A Reading Journal (A Complete Guide)
7. How To Practice Self-Love
Though we know quite a bit about self-care journaling, we haven’t explored the wonderfulness of practicing self-care and self-love.
It’s easy to write about caring for your wellbeing but are you actually taking care of yourself? You have no idea how incredibly important it is to practice self-love that will ensure you at your highest capabilities.
So, here are a few ways to practice self-love which will require time, patience, and dedication.
Just know that the more often that you practice taking care of yourself, the better you will feel overall which I cannot stress enough.
Self-love is important, so go get it!
Make A Promise
The first most crucial thing you will need to do is to make a promise. Not to your friends or family or boss but a promise to yourself that you will take a few minutes or an hour a week to yourself without any distractions or interruptions.
This time that is dedicated to doing a certain activity will only be used for you but in order for this to work, you will have to show up every day and make self care a habit.
If this is something you haven’t done in a long time but know that it will be beneficial to you.
Whether that’s going to a yoga class, sleeping early, eating healthier, whatever the self-care activity it is you want to try, remove the mental block that is telling you that you don’t need this time and form that resistance needed to take care of yourself!
Date Yourself
Treat yourself the way you would treat your party if this was the first time you’re dating them.
Go for a nice walk in the park, enjoy a delicious meal, buy a new dress or shirt, or splurge on that item that you’ve been waiting months on end to get.
Use Affirmations
Try to be more loving to yourself by using kind words when referring to how you or the things you’ve done.
Instead of describing yourself as terrible for not doing something right, rather say ‘I’ll do better next time’ or ‘You’re still doing a great job, keep going!
These few kind words can have a huge impact on the way you feel and the way you approach things in general. With the more affirmations you use daily, you’ll start to notice a shift in the way your thoughts are formed.
Make it a habit to write down at least one affirmation daily and see the magic work in a few weeks (or even days) from now.
Over at Develop Good Habits, you’ll find 1000+ positive affirmations to use that you can pick from and choose to write in your journal for a positive, feel-good day.
I recommend either writing down one affirmation to start the day on a good note or you can write one at night to look forward to the next day.
Try A New Hobby
Find at least one new hobby to take up such as painting, drawing, knitting, crocheting, hiking (whatever that sounds interesting to you) and make it a habit to learn more.
Invest your time in things you love and this will be the greatest way to love and take care of yourself.
Start Meditation
Meditating is another great way to get into the groove of taking care of yourself. There are many playlists and free videos you can watch.
Set aside at least 20 minutes in a day (once or twice a week will work well too) and choose a place that will make you feel safe and comfortable.
At the end of each session, you’ll feel less stressed and more relaxed to tackle the week effectively.
Also, you can create a spread to track your meditation sessions in your journal like this one over at Masha Plans.
Remove The Guilt
One thing you have to be aware of and that is feeling guilty to take care of yourself. We might feel like it’s selfish that you’re spending so much time on yourself but that’s not it at all!
In fact, here’s a more positive way to think of this – it’s investing in yourself to be more healthy, happier, and relaxed.
8. Self Care Techniques
The next thing you need to know is special ways to take care of yourself. Here are a few suggestions to try that will make you feel more relaxed especially after a long day.
1. Unplug – This means removing any kind of task you need to do and putting your phone or laptop away. Grab a book, a mug of something delicious, and get away from the electronics.
2. Warm Bath – One of the special ways to relax is soaking in the tub and if you’re fond of bath bombs, they can make the experience so much better. I won’t recommend adding rose petals because that’s just a pain to clean unless you use just a few you can scoop up when you’re done.
3. Routine – Create a specific routine that will ensure you stick with your self-care and the activities that you have scheduled. Whether that’s adding an entry to your self-care journal, reading a book, or soaking your feet, whatever the activity is, just make sure you complete it so it becomes a habit.
4. Therapy – This is a great way if you need to resolve some issues or if you’re just looking to confide in someone. Perhaps you need to talk about things that have been weighing you down, investing in therapy can be a great form of building new relationships while also dealing with issues.
Of course, the list of techniques to take care of yourself is vast and the best way to find out what works for you is to test them out for yourself. Each person is different and so are their likes and dislikes.
Sometimes it’s way easier to change a routine or pattern based on your personal tastes.
9. Conclusion
Self-care and self-love is a process that needs active participation and the discipline to see it through.
With the first step of beginning a self-care journal, you’re basically halfway there to taking care of yourself.
The rest is up to you but if there’s one thing to remember, investing the time into yourself is worth every second you put into it. For one, keeping a self-care journal will always be that handy guide to motivate you.
You may not immediately experience the true value of self-care but over time you will recognize the importance of it.
I hope you were able to learn and enjoy everything there is to know about self-care journaling and hopefully, this article was useful to you.
If there are any questions, suggestions you’d like to share with us or even your own experience with a self-care bullet journal, leave your amazing thoughts and feelings in the comments below.
