Sentence Starters for Your Journaling Journey
Journaling reminds you to participate in life.
Journaling could be writing whatever comes to mind. During turbulence free writing helps. But structured self-reflection provides purpose and direction.
Enhance your journaling journey with simple sentence starters.
Sentence starters for your journaling journey:
Choose a focus and write a sentence or two.
Gratitude:
- I’m making progress on…
- My interactions with _______ have been useful because…
- I’m glad I’m…
- A highlight of my day/life is…
- Today I’ll send a thank you note to…
- I’m thankful for…
- I’m thankful to…
Self-Reflection:
- My biggest challenge today is…
- One thing I want to accomplish today is… (Click here to learn the Big Rocks Law.)
- I’m frustrated with/about…
- Mom would be proud if she knew…
Goal setting:
- One thing I want to accomplish today is… (Think about big rocks.)
- Bring a goal to mind. My next step is…
- I’m striving to…
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Mindfulness:
- Today I feel…
- I notice I’m often…
- I think about…
- My environment feels…
- I’m energized when…
- I’m drained when…
Creativity:
- My compassionate self wants to…
- My fearful self wants to…
- My brave self would…
- If I was older I would…
- If I was younger I would…
- I wish…
Personal Growth:
- I’m working to develop __________. Today I will…
- I’m learning…
- I admire ________. Today the behavior I will emulate is…
- One thing I will do today to develop myself is… (Listen to a podcast. Read an article on…)
- Next time I will…
Connection:
- I had a meaningful conversation with…
- I want to learn more about… (Name a person.)
- Today I’ll send an encouraging note to…
- _________ is a positive influence in my life. One benefit of our relationship is…
Random Reflections:
- I admire _______ because…
- I’m dreaming…
- If only…
- I would love to…
Tip: Choose one sentence starter to begin. If you like, use the same sentence until it’s boring.
What sentence starters for journaling do you have?
Which of the sentence starters listed above speaks to you?
Still curious:
Eye-opening Self-Reflection Questions for Leaders
Yesterday’s post has lots of great comments: 10 Reasons to Begin Journaling Today
“The Vagrant: The Inner Journey of Leadership,” is the story of a leader who stumbled over himself because he lost himself to career.
Purchase The Vagrant at your favorite bookstore or online.
Love this! Thank you!
Happy New Year, SB.
Thank you. I printed this out to keep with my journal!
Thanks, Shannon. Glad to be useful. Cheers
Thanks for the prompts – I find them very helpful. On a related note, I did the same with “Questions to ask during 1-1 sessions” to help keep them fresh.
Yesterday I made my first journal entry. Today I added a page titled “Prompts” and put all of your ideas there. I then used the “Goal setting: One thing I want to accomplish today is… (Think about big rocks.)” prompt to add a note and added another note on one of the quotes you used.
Thanks, Ryan. Wonderful. Sounds like you’re on your way. I hope you continue finding the prompts useful.
To share my journaling practice, right now I’m reading Letters from Seneca in the evening. Just one letter. They are short. I capture any insight that’s seems relevant to my work or life. In the mornings I read the Proverb of the day from the Hebrew Scripture. (There are 31 proverbs so on 1/5/24 I read chapter 5.
(I’ve always been fascinated by wisdom literature.)
Thanks for this list. I’ve saved it to my Desktop and hope to create a new habit of self-reflection this year!
I wish you well, Wendy. I think it will make a difference.
These are great and can also be converted to questions for dinner table conversation with your family. Who did you have a meaningful converstaion with today? Who do you want to learn more about? Who is a positive influence in your life? etc. Thanks- so many good ideas from other posters. too.
Thanks, Sharon. Wonderful application. Wouldn’t it be great if families had meaningful conversations around the table?