Author: Reve

Here are things you might wish to record in your journal as they happen, even if you are not keeping regular diary-style entries about your days.

1. Dreams or the impression/mood you woke up with – it can color your day even if you forget it right away.
2. Daydreams – they can be keys to understanding what you really want or need and what is missing in your life, or simply a window into how you are feeling (does stress make your daydreams turn into daymares?)
3. Overall mood of the day.
4. When others who play a major role in your life are especially happy or upset.
5. Significant decisions – what was the context, what factors seemed most important, what decision did you make and what outcomes do you expect? Come back in six months or a year and see how you did.
6. Gut feelings – did you follow them or go against them? Come back later and find out whether you should trust your gut more in certain areas or whether on some topics it’s actually your anxieties in disguise.
7. Times you experience surprise, in particular if it’s because of others’ reactions to something – could it be your expectations need tuning?
8. Feelings of especial happiness, pride, or fulfillment.
9. Times you realize you’ve been completely engrossed in an activity.
10. First impressions, especially if someone makes a great first impression – what was it about them?
11. Times you have a negative reaction to someone else’s actions, especially if they would be surprised that you had reacted negatively. This is to look back at for patterns, to figure out what is actually bothering you and either learn how to not be bothered by it, or be able to ask for different behavior from the other person specifically and with a reason.

Small talk is to conversation with new people what a warmup is to exercise: it’s not the point, and you don’t want to spend an excessive amount of time on it, but if you skip it you’re more likely to have a bad experience with the main event.

1. Prepare descriptions of your work, hobbies, and family/living situation that are suitable for any audience. (Clearly only the parts you’d be interested in discussing!)
2. Write about what kind of first impression you’d like to make. What would you like someone to say about you after the occasion? “That person seemed ___.” What attitude and actions would convey that impression?
3. Find a list online of conversation openers and prepare answers to them as you would for potential interview questions. Which such questions would you feel comfortable using? Can you come up with others?
4. If you are anticipating a specific event: Write about your relationship to the event. How are you connected to the host(s) or to other expected guests; have you been to past editions of the event or comparable other events? Do you know any related trivia that others might find interesting?

There are likely thousands of lists of journal prompts available online, some of which are very good. I have found, though, that if you are looking to journal for self-discovery, there are a lot of prompts out there that are either shallow (describe yourself in three words… okay, now what) or beg the question (what needs are going unfulfilled in your life… um, if I knew that I wouldn’t be looking for self-discovery journal prompts?). As I read both prompts and general writings about purpose and happiness and values, I have been taking notes and reconfiguring the various ideas into my own spin on the prompts, which I think of more as journal exercises – but to rename them from prompts is splitting hairs. I thought I’d start sharing them maybe every other week in this “Aside” post format.

First up, faceted life story. Write your life story through the lens of:

1. Religion & Spirituality: [Here I use the word “religion” as a shorthand for all varieties of spiritual practice.] How were you raised and what relationship did you have to religion as a child? How did your experience and relationship change over time? Are there any particular events that deepened or distanced your relationship to your childhood religion? To a new adopted religion? What has kept your belief strong, or what brought you back if you spent time away, or what prompted the change to a new religion or to no religion? How has the whole process felt? Is there anything from a past religion you miss?
2. Education & Career: What did you expect to do for a living when you were a child? What was your experience of and relationship to school? How did your career plans change as you grew into young adulthood? Did they change your relationship to school? Did your plans when you finished high school turn out? Your plans at 21? At 25? If not, was the change something you wanted or was it due to things not working out as you hoped? What has happened in your career and education since? Is there still something you’d like to do and haven’t yet?
3. Relationship & Family: As a child, how did you envision your adult romantic and family life? Big wedding, small wedding, no wedding; lots of kids, few kids, no kids? Tight ties to siblings and other family members or a separate life elsewhere? How did it come to pass? Did you find a discrepancy between what you thought you wanted and what you actually wanted, and if so how did you find it? Is there anything you wanted as a child and haven’t gotten, but still want?