Blog a Journal

A Journal of Intention and Change

 

With this journal,  I'm pledging to myself to pay attention and live my life with intention, to honor my hopes and goals, to become the person I want to be, and to live each day a little bit better.

 

Intentions

Starting today, I will …

Give People the Benefit of the Doubt

Do One Task at a Time

Forgive My Mistakes

Take Time to Appreciate My Surroundings

Ask for Help

Believe that I’m Worth It

Be Open to Happiness

Do Something for Others

Be Present

Stop and Breathe

Try Something New

Trust My Instincts

Allow Myself to Dream Big

Ask Questions

Express Myself

Be Mindful of any Actions

Love Openly

Challenge Myself

Recognize Bad Habits

Be Conscious of My Feelings

Be Positive

Laugh Out Loud

Be the Change I Want to See in the World

Get Organized

Refuse to Settle

Follow My Own Path

Face My Fears

Explore My Surroundings

Celebrate the People in My Life

Hold Myself Accountable

Avoid Self-Pity

Embrace Individuality

Create!

Inspire Positive Change in Others

Listen to My Inner Voice

Be Grateful

Leave the Past in the Past

Take Control of my Destiny

Learn From My Past Mistakes

Be Healthy

Know My Limits

Learn Something New

Support My Community

Have More Fun

Listen to Others

Only Expect the Best

Form My Own Opinions

Smile as Much as Possible

Be Sensitive to Others Points of View

 

  Journal Prompts

Changing Seasons - what does this mean to me?  

I believe that Changing Season is symbolic for the changes in our life being like the seasons in a years time, our old ways becoming new.  There is a time for everything in our life and in a season it's time for a change.  This reminds me of a poem called Reason, Season or Lifetime

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
Thank you for being a part of my life,
whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.
— Unknown

What Changes have I've seen in my life? (the lives of my family members) recently?

There had been a few events happen in my life that made me feel a little lost.  Most of those events had to do with my family members.  I felt that my priorities, purpose and direction had to changed.  I had two of my adult kids move out of our home and on their own.  One of those kids had a child, giving me a grand child.  We bought a new home and made a move a year ago.  I feel like the days, weeks, months and years are starting to feel like their flying by me too fast to keep up.  I decided I need to do a few things in my life that I've always wanted to do but didn't take the time to do.  Starting my blog was a way to express and find myself again.    

   

What changes would I like to see happening in my life?

I decided to go to a doctor this year about some pain that I've been experience for sometime.  The pain that I have experience makes it difficult for me to want to do much.  I had contributed it to stress and moving but I found out it was more than that.  I am treating the pain.   I would like to see most of the pain going away and not happening as often as constant.   I would also like to live a less stress and healthier life.  I've been working toward that goal for sometime but I am having to change several bad habits that I've allowed my self to get into.  I have always valued the time I spent with my family but I feel that I would like to have more quality time with my kids.  I would like to see my blog be a helpful resource to others.



    


If I could change one thing about my home - what will it be?

If I could change one thing about my new home it would be that the 7 1/2 acres would be clear of rocks and cactus to make it easy to mow.  I would like it to look like a well groomed park.  I would like a few picnic tables located in different spots so that I could have picnic lunches and a different place to write.  The one thing that I would like to change about to my old house is too be completely moved out and sold.



  


What changes have I made recently that I regret/are thankful for?


I regret the weight I've gained and not taking care of myself.  I regret waiting so long to do somethings that I've always wanted to do.  I feel like I wasted time.  I'm thankful for my family and home.  I'm thankful that I now have the opportunity to do some of those things I've wanted to do.





  Journal Prompts
  



Three Statements to complete about yourself: "What Inspires Your Creativity?"

I often daydream about...

I feel most creative when...

I'm inspired by...

 


Three Statements to complete about myself: "What Inspires My Creativity?"

I often daydream about...

 

I feel most creative when...

I write down my aspirations and goals. It's the best way to start a day of artistic work. Writing sends a message to my mind saying, Creativity is important today.

I'm blogging. It combines two of my loves: writing and art. I can share things I make with an audience and inspire them to explore their own creativity.

I'm inspired by...

 

 

 

  

 “A Journey of a Thousand Mile Must Begin With a Single Step.” – Lau Tzu

 

  

  Journal Prompt

 Activity:  Create a List of Activities That Make You Happy.

Set the intention to do one each week this month.  Write about how this made you feel.

 

“What You Can do, or dream You Can, begin it.  Boldness Has genius, power, and magic in it.”  - Goethe





Journal Prompts

Activity:  Think of a Time When You Felt Proud of Something You Accomplished.

How did you get there?  What can you focus on today to bring you closer to that feeling?

Activity:  Think of Three People You a Admire, and Write About Why.

What can you do today to foster similar qualities?

Activity: Have a List of the Things That Make You Angriest During the Day.

Why do you think they are so infuriating to you?  What can you intend to do ahead of time to avoid becoming upset, keeping in mind that the answer might be in how you deal with a given situation?  Maybe the answer is as simple as taking a breath or going for a walk.

Activity:  Pick One Person in Your Life Who Could Use Cheering Up.

Plan to do something special this week to lift their spirts, and then write about what the experience taught you about your own life.



 

“It Does Not Matter How Slowly You Go, So Long As You Do Not Stop.” – Confusius

  Journal Prompt

Activity:  What Are Three Things You Would Change About Your Life to Make it More Fulfilling?

What’s holding you back?  What small things can you do today to start implementing these changes?



 

“Cause and Effect, Means and Ends, Seed and Fruit Cannot be Severed; for the Effect Already Blooms in the Cause, the End Preexists in the Means, the Fruit in the Seed.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Journal Prompts

Activity:  The Better We Sleep, The Better We Feel.

This week, intend to get a great night of sleep every night.  Begin winding down early and use relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or visualization, to ensure peaceful slumber.  Write about how your week was improved.

Activity:  Spend One Day This Week Exploring a Place You’ve Been Meaning to Visit But Haven’t Yet – a local museum, art gallery, or other cultural destination.  Write about your experience and what specific things inspired you.  How did it feel to finally go?

Activity:   Write about Your Hidden Talents as well as the Hidden Talents That You Wish You Had.

Find one thing you can do today to nurture your talents, whether it’s enrolling in a ceramics class or simply singing in the shower.  Reflect on how this made you feel.

Activity:  Describe What an Average Day Would be Like in Your Dream Career.

What is one thing you can do today to move you closer to making that dream a reality?

“One Can Make a Day of Any Size, and Regulate the Rising and Setting of His Own Sun and the Brightness of its Shining.”   - John Muir

 Journal Prompts

Activity:  What’s a Conversation That You’ve Been Putting Off Having Because of How You Thought the Person Might React?

Pick a time this week to start that conversation.  What other questions have you been hesitant to ask those around you?

Activity:  Small Turns in the Road Can Sometimes Lead to Big Adventures.

Try altering something about your daily routine each day this week and see what new paths open up for you.

“Life is Either a Daring Adventure or Nothing to Keep Our Faces Toward Change and Behave Like Free Spirits in the Presence of Fate is Strength Undefeatable.” 

- Helen Keller



  Journal Prompts

Activity:  Spend an Hour or Two This Week Creating a Vision Collage:  use cutout images from magazines, blogs, and elsewhere that project an image of how you see your ideal life and the person you wish to be.  What insight can you glean?

Activity:  Think of a Time When Someone – a friend, parent, teacher, or other role model – inspired positive change in you.  What can you do today to inspire a positive change in someone else?

Activity:  What Did You Want to be When You Grew Up?

Are you doing it?  If not, what changed along the way?  This week, think about how you can incorporate those early aspirations into your current life.

“Do What You Can, With What You Have, Where You Are.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Make a Pros and Cons List About Your Current Job.

What conclusions can you draw?  What are some cons that you can focus on changing today?

Activity:  Think About What it Means to be a Good Friend.

Create a friend report card for yourself, assessing how good of a friend you think you have been.  In which areas do you excel?  Which could use improvement?

Activity:  This Week, Put Your Energy into Learning How to do Something that you’ve always been interested in, like learning to sew or even whistling.  Imagine what other things you could learn to do if you made the time.

“Not Everything That is Faced Can be Changed Until it is Faced.” - James Baldwin

Journal Prompt

Activity:  Today, Focus on Not Just Hearing Other People But Truly Listening to Them.

What sort of things did you learn that you might otherwise not have?



 

“Success Often Comes to Those Who Dare and Act; it Seldom Goes to the Timid Who Are Ever Afraid of the Consequences.”  - Jawaharlal Nehru

Journal Prompts

 Activity:  Set Up An Interview This Week With Someone Who You Feel is Living Their Dream.

What sorts of questions would you like to ask them?  What lessons from their life can you use in your own?

Activity:  They Say That Laughter is the Best Medicine.

Today, find as many excuses as possible to laugh, and see how your mood improves.

Activity:  What are Three Things You Would Change About Your Life to Make it More Fulfilling?

What’s holding you back?  What small things can you do today to start implementing these changes?

Activity:  Make a List of Quiet Spots, Either Near Your Home or Work.

Visit one of these spots each day this week and spend at least fifteen minutes enjoying the silence and reflecting on your life.

Activity:  Set Your Intention to Say Thank You to as Many People as Possible Today, and then write about how they responded and how it made you feel.  What did this teach you about your daily life?

“Life is Not Long, and Too Much of it Must Not pass in Idle Deliberation of How it Shall be Spent.” - Samuel Johnson

Journal Prompt

Activity:  Write About a Time When Someone Made You Feel Truly Appreciated.

How did that feel?  Have you been meaning to acknowledge someone?  What are some opportunities for you to show appreciation for someone else today?

“There’s Only One Corner of the Universe You Can be Certain of Improving, and That is Your Own Self.”  – Aldous Huxley

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Describe a Relationship – Either One of Yours or a Friend’s – that you consider to be healthy.  What are its defining characteristic?  What is something you can do today to foster those same characteristics in all your relationships?

Activity:  Take a Few Minutes to Write Down Why You’ve Decided to Keep This Journal.

What are you hoping to accomplish?  What are your personal intentions for it?  Throughout the year, keep flipping back to this page to keep yourself on track.

Activity:  Make a List of The Things You’ve Been Meaning to Fix.

Maybe it’s a rusty bike, a chipped vase, or a broken picture frame.  Set Your intention to either fix one thing or finally get it into the trash and out of mind.

Activity:  Pick a Day This Week to Ask For Feedback From One of Your Friends on How They View Your Life.

How does their impression differ from yours?  Does their feedback inspire you to make any changes, either in how you live or how you see yourself?

Activity:  Organizing Your Life is a Big Job, But You Can Make it Manageable by Starting Small.

This week pick one area of your life, whether it’s your closet or your taxes, to organize.  What further steps can you take to make organization a part of your daily routine?

“Nothing Ever Becomes Real Till it is Experienced.” 
– John Keats

Journal Prompt

Activity:  Think About the Big Decisions in Your Life That Brought You to the Place You Are Now.

What different choices would you have made in retrospect?  How can you apply those lessons to a decision you’re facing in your life today?

“Forever – is Composed of Nows.” - Emily Dickinson

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Throughout Today, Say Hello to as Many People as Possible – Even Strangers.

What sort of interactions took place?  What did this teach you about your life?

Activity:  Today, Concentrate on Recognizing as Many Negative Thoughts as Possible and Replacing Them with Positive Thoughts.

How successful were you?  What are other ways of promoting positivity?

Activity:  Thing Big!  Pick a Project that You’ve been Hesitant to Start Because is Simply Feels Too Big.

Today spend thirty minutes setting your project in motion, whether that means making a list of supplies or doing online research.

“The Living Moment is Everything.” – D.H. Lawrence

Journal Prompt

Activity:  Today, Focus on Not Just Hearing Other People But Truly Listening to Them.

What sort of things did you learn that you might otherwise not have?

“May You Live All The Days of Your Life.” –     Jonathan Swift

 Journal Prompt



Activity:  Think About a Time When Someone Forgave You.

What were the circumstances and how did the experience make you feel?  Is there anything that you need to forgive yourself for today?

“Great Things Are Not Done by Impulse, But by a Series of Small Things Brought Together.”  - Vincent Van Gogh

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Intend to Wake Up One Hour Early Each Day This Week, and spend the extra time doing something you enjoy.  At the end of the week, write about what the extra time allowed you to accomplish.

Activity:  What Are Three Things You Would Change About Your Life to make it more fulfilling?  What’s holding you back?  What small things can you do today to start implementing these changes?

Activity:  Outline Your Overall Health Goals.

What are the biggest obstacles to achieving those goals?  What is one thing you could do each day – related to exercise or diet, for instance - that will bring you closer to your goal?

“They Always Say That Time Changes Things, But You Actually Have to Change Them Yourself.” - Andy Warhol



 Journal Prompts

Activity:  Which Times During the Day are the Most Stressful?

What are the circumstances surrounding those times?  Today, choose an affirming phrase, such as “I am perfect just how I am,” and repeat it to yourself whenever you feel overcome by stress.

Activity:  Make a List of Events or Activities That You’ve Been Longing to do.

This week, take yourself on a date and treat yourself to one of those activities.  How did this make you feel?   Plan to do it next week, too!

Activity:  Make a List of All the things You are Grateful For (it’s okay if you go through several pages!).  Think of ways that you can express your gratitude this week.

"Destiny is Not a Matter of Chance, it is a Matter of Choice.  It is Not a Thing to be Waited For; it is a Thing to be Achieved.   – William Jennings Bryan

Journal Prompt

Activity:  This Week, Research Local Groups That Sount Interesting to You – a cooking club, a book group, or something more adventurous.  What do you think you could gain from joining?  What’s holding you back?

“The Value of Achievement Lies in the Achieveing.” - Albert Einstein

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Write About the One Thing That Made You  Happiest as a Child.

How can you reconnect with that happiness today?

Activity:  Write About Where You Would Like to be in Five years.

Which part of your life would be different?  Which would stay the same?  What are some practical things you can do today to help you reach you goals?

Activity:  What are Three Things You Would Change About the World to Make it a Better Place?

How can you help enact those changes today?

Activity:  Think of an Old Friend You’ve Lost Touch With.

What has changed in your life since last you spoke?  How do you feel about where you are now?  Today, reach out and make contact.

 




Quote:  “I Say That the Strongest Principle of Growth Lies in Human Choice.”  - George Eliot

Quote:  “Yesterday is Gone; Tomorrow Has Not Yet Come.  We Have Only Today.  Let Us Begin.” – Mother Teresa

Quote:  “Well Done is Better Than Well Said.” – Benjamin Franklin

Journal Prompt

Activity:  What Are Three Things You Would Change About Your Life to make it more fulfilling?  What’s holding you back?  What small things can you do today to start implementing these changes?

“It is Hard to Fail, but it is Worse Never to Have Tried to Succeed.” 
– Theodore Roosevelt

Journal Prompts

Activity:  Write a Letter to Your Younger self, explaining who you’ve become and how you got there.  What parts of the letter made you feel good?  Which parts, if any felt disappointing?

Activity:  Write About The Last Time You Did Something That Really Made You Feel Alive.

This week, dare yourself to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone, like participating in an open mic night or signing up for skydiving lessons.

Activity:  Make a List of Your Bad Habits.

How did they start and what might be their underlying causes?  Make a point today of refraining from one bad habit and write about how it made a difference in your day.  Outline a plan of how you can continue forming better habits.

“Change Your Life Today.  Don’t Gamble on the Future; Act Now, Without Delay.”  - Simone De Beauvoir

 Journal Prompts



Activity:  Visit the Library and Pick Out a Biography of Someone Who Inspires You.

How did that person deal with issues similar to those you face?  What insight can you apply to your own life today?

Activity:  How Does Your Outward Appearance Affect the Way You see Yourself?

Looking our best helps us feel our best, too.  Today, do one thing that helps you better represent your true self, like cleaning out your closet, exercising, or scheduling an overdue haircut.

Activity:  Write About a Time When You Successfully Faced Your Fears.

How did you go about it?  What similar techniques could you use to overcome fear today?

“Let Us Not Look Back in Anger Nor Forward in Fear, But Around in Awareness.”  - James Thurber

 Journal Prompt



Activity:  Today, Concentrate on Recognizing as Many Negative Thoughts as Possible and Replacing Them With Positive Thoughts.

How successful were you?  What are other ways of promoting positivity?

“Why Always ‘Not Yet’?  Do Flowers in Spring Say ‘Not Yet’?” – Norman Douglas

 Journal Prompts

Activity:  What Are Three Things You Would Change About Your Life to Make it More Fulfilling?

What’s holding you back?  What small things can you do today to start implementing these changes?

Activity:  Think About a Time When You Gave Your Trust Over to Someone.

What were the circumstances and the outcome?  Today, find ways to instill trust in others and have them put their trust in you.

“The Bitterest Tears Shed Over Graves Are For Words Left Unsaid and Deeds Left Undone.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

 Journal Prompts

Activity:  About a Time in Your Life When You Succeeded Against All Odds.

How did you accomplish it?  How can you apply the same techniques to a challenge today?