25 Free Journaling Prompts for Beginners

This post is all about journaling prompts for beginners.

Are you new to journaling and looking for inspiration to get started? Journaling is a powerful tool for self-discovery, reflection, and creativity. Whether you want to boost your mood, improve your mental clarity, or simply record your thoughts and experiences, journaling can be a transformative practice.

Journaling has become an important part of my self-care routine and my healing journey. It’s a safe place for me to be my honest self and it’s a place to document my life journey. In many ways, it’s helped me address often neglected areas of my life.

In this post, I discuss how journaling has become a part of my healing journey, the benefits of journaling, and provide 25 journal prompts for beginners to help you get started.

The Beginning of My Journaling Journey

I’ve been journaling intentionally (and sometimes unintentionally) for years. I remember having a diary back when I was 11 or 12, where I would write any and everything that came to mind (it was mostly about who I was crushing on, to be honest, lol). But over the years, I’ve come to appreciate journaling for the ways it’s impacted my life.

More Reasons Why Journaling is Impactful:

• Overcoming Writer’s Block: Journal prompts provide a starting point when you’re unsure of what to write about. They can spark ideas and creativity, helping you overcome writer’s block and get your thoughts flowing.
• Enhancing Creativity: By exploring different topics and perspectives through journal prompts, you stimulate your creativity. This can lead to new insights, ideas, and connections that you might not have discovered otherwise.
• Promoting Self-Discovery: Journal prompts encourage introspection and self-reflection. They prompt you to explore your thoughts, emotions, and experiences in depth, leading to greater self-awareness and personal growth.

Different Styles of Journaling

Write it out

I mostly journal on paper. Physically writing out my thoughts helps me sort and process my emotions better, but it isn’t the only way I journal. When I’m in a rush, or just have too many thoughts to document, I’ll use a Google Doc. I can type way faster than I can handwrite so that wins all the time.

Talk-to-text on my smartphone

I use an app called Presently as a gratitude journal. It’s easy to use, I get prompts every day reminding me to write out what I’m thankful for, and I can record it on the go. When I don’t feel like typing it out, I’ll use the talk-to-text feature on my phone and record my thoughts that way.

Video recording

Sometimes I like to catch myself in the moment and capture where I am, what I’m doing, and discuss what I’m going through – all on video. Video journals are cool to make and are super personal. I like them because I get to see my facial expressions, hear any nuances in my voice, and relive the moment anytime I rewatch it.

Voice recording

This is a new way I’ve started to journal. This works when I’m doing an activity or if I have too many thoughts to process and write. Talking it out is very therapeutic to me (hence why I love recording my podcast). 9/10 after talking out my thoughts I feel a lot lighter.

Alright, now that I’ve covered the many ways you can journal, I will provide tips on how you can begin journaling on your own.

5 Beginner Friendly Journaling ideas

Free Writing 

This type of journaling is great for beginners or those who have a hard time writing thoughts down. Freewriting is when you write what comes to mind. This can include what you did that day, how you feel in the moment — anything. Just let it come to you.

To make this easier, find a space that is quiet and where feel comfortable. Try setting the mood by playing soothing background music. I like to listen to nature sounds, brown noise, and jazz music to put me in a relaxed state.

Noisli offers a playlist of background sounds to get you in a productive, relaxed, or calm state.

Gratitude Journaling

Research conducted on gratitude journaling reported that people who keep gratitude journals are happier and in better health than those who do not.

Give yourself the challenge to write down three things you’re grateful for each day. It can be as simple as being grateful for waking up in the morning, having a roof over your head, or being in good health. You’ll notice that the more you say how thankful you are for what you have the more life will present you with even more to be thankful for.

Self Love Journaling

The fastest way to build confidence, self-esteem, and improve your relationship with yourself is by looking inward and practicing self-love. Simply put, self-love means having a high regard for your well-being and happiness.

Self-love journaling would involve writing down traits about yourself that you love or enjoy. You can even try listing out 100 things you love about yourself and expand from there.

Express Yourself

Sometimes I use my journal as a way to rant about whatever is on my mind at the moment. This is what helps me process and deal with intense emotions as well. No matter what, every time I finish ranting in my journal, I feel slightly better.

Ways you can express yourself in your journal is to write when you feel emotional. Are you sad? Write about it. Mad? Write. Happy? Write. Allow yourself to feel the feeling and write out everything about it, then, let it go.

Self-Growth

The best way to track your personal development is by taking responsibility for it. If you don’t hold yourself accountable by doing monthly or quarterly check-ins how will you know you’re on the right track to success?

Write about your routine, patterns, and habits. Take time to reflect on how you feel in the moment you are writing the journal and make a note of where you would like to get to.

One of the easiest ways I like to do this is by asking myself three questions:
1. What does success look like to me?
2. What do I have to do to become successful?
3. What changes can I make today to become successful? 

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25 Journal Prompts for Beginners

To help you get started, I created 25 journal prompts based on each of these journal ideas. You can find them by clicking the image below.

Check out my latest Youtube video where I break down this process in more detail and if you haven’t already, subscribe for more videos!