Journaling can become stagnant if you don’t mix things up occasionally. Here are 10 fun journal entry challenges to help you on your self-discovery journey and make journaling fun again.
Are you ready to embark on a fun exploration of yourself?
Journaling can get monotonous if you are not mixing things up from time to time. But don’t worry!
In this blog post, we will share 10 fun journal entry ideas you must try. These exercises, rooted in biopsychology, boost mental health, enhance self-awareness, and inspire personal growth. Are you ready for a fun challenge?
This blog post is all about journal entry ideas.
It’s no secret, that gratefulness makes one’s day focus on the good rather than the bad and considerably improves your outlook on your day.
Benefits
Studies show, that practising gratitude will boost mental health by increasing dopamine and serotonin levels—key neurotransmitters involved in feelings of happiness and well-being.
HOW TO DO A GRATITUDE JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE?
- Write 5 things you are grateful for in detail. Why? How do they make your day better?
- Focus on aspects of yourself you are grateful to have.
- Create a gratitude mandala.
How to Create a Gratitude Mandala
A gratitude mandala is a mix of gratitude journaling and the relaxing art of creating mandalas. It is a beautiful, mindful way to reflect on the things you are grateful for.
There are a few ways you can go about this:
- Draw a mandala (a circular design with intricate patterns) on a journal page. As you draw, think about the things you’re grateful for and incorporate them into your mandala. You can write words or phrases around the mandala or within its sections.
- Get a mandala colouring book and choose the mandala you love. When you are coloring think about all the things you are grateful for and include them in the design. (I like to write them down on the other side).
Here is a mandala that I have coloured:
If you want to try something similar, you’ll need:
2. A Word for a Day Challenge
A short daily reflection offers a valuable opportunity to recall the essence of your days, weeks, and months: where your focus lay, the challenges you faced, and the moments of joy and wonder that colored your daily life.
Benefits
Reflecting on your day can improve memory retention and cognitive function, as well as increase emotional regulation and resilience.
HOW TO DO A WORD FOR A DAY JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE?
- Write about the highlight of your day. What made it special?
- Reflect on something new you learned about yourself today.
- Describe in one word how you handled a challenging situation.
3. The Dream Journal Challenge
Our dreams offer us a glimpse into our subconscious. A dream log is a safe space where you jot down your dreams as soon as you wake up, so you don’t forget them and can analyze them later.
Benefits
Dreams can be a window into our unconscious mind, revealing hidden thoughts and emotions. By analyzing your dreams, you might gain insights into unresolved issues or creative solutions to your problems. This practice leverages your brain’s natural processing during the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep phase to support mental health and self-awareness.
TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE DREAM LOGGING JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE
- Keep your journal and a pen beside your bed.
- Write down dreams as soon as you wake up, before they fade from memory.
- Record as much detail as possible, including emotions, colors, people, and locations.
- Use keywords or phrases to jog your memory later when analyzing your dreams.
- Consider using sketches or drawings to enhance written descriptions, especially for vivid or complex dreams.
- Get a dream dictionary, so you can easily interpret your dreams (there are some great ones, recommended here).
4. The Creative Writing Challen
Ever wanted to get lost in your imagination? Is your mind constantly conjuring up stories and plots? Then this challenge is made for you!
Benefits
Creative writing stimulates brain areas associated with creativity, enhances problem-solving skills, and can be deeply therapeutic.
IDEAS FOR CREATIVE WRITING JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE
- Reverse Storytelling: Start your story with the ending and work your way backwards to the beginning, unravelling the plot in reverse.
- Character Swap: Take two characters from different stories or genres and swap their roles. How would they adapt to each other’s worlds?
- Unseen Senses: Describe a scene using senses beyond the traditional five (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell), such as intuition, balance, or proprioception.
- Parallel Universes: Write about a day in the life of a version of yourself from a parallel universe where one key event in your life unfolded differently.
- Inanimate Object Perspective: Tell a story from the perspective of an inanimate object witnessing a significant event unfold before it.
- Letter to a Fictional Character: Write a letter from yourself to a fictional character, discussing how their story impacted your life or seeking advice from them.
- Flash Fiction from a Single Word: Choose a single word (e.g., “whisper,” “spark,” “echo”) and write a complete story of 500 words or fewer inspired by that word.
- Story Through Dialogue: Write a story entirely through dialogue between two characters. Avoid any narrative description or exposition, relying solely on their conversation.
- Emotion Wheel: Choose an emotion from an emotion wheel (e.g., joy, disgust, anticipation) and write a story where that emotion drives the plot, influencing the characters’ decisions and actions.
5. The Goals and Aspirations Challenge
Setting and tracking personal goals can clarify your intentions and create a roadmap for achieving your dreams.
HOW TO DO GOALS AND ASPIRATIONS JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE?
- List your top five life goals.
- Why would you like to achieve them? Who will you be once you get to the goals? Can you act as that person now?
- Describe your ideal future in detail.
- Who are you? What do you do? Where do you live? Who are the people in your life? How do you dress, act and present to others? What do you do in your day-to-day life?
- Write about the steps you can take today to get closer to your goals.
- What steps can you take today, tomorrow and in the next week, that will get you closer to your goals?
- Create a vision board!
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about visualisation and manifestation through vision boards. What if I told you, that it is actually backed up by science?
Benefits
From a biopsychological perspective, visualizing your goals can activate the reticular activating system (RAS) in your brain, which helps you notice opportunities related to your goals. Regularly seeing pictures of what you want to achieve will make you achieve it. It is a subconscious process. Plus it will enhance your motivation, since this is a really fun and creative exercise.
How to Create a Vision Board Journal Page
- You are going to need a lot of pictures that represent your goals. You can get them from magazines, draw them or print them out. One of the best websites for aesthetic pictures is Pinterest.
- Then turn up some music, prepare a fresh drink, get into comfortable clothes and gather all the supplies. You are going to need some stickers, glue, scissors, pens, and a big poster.
- Then the only thing left to do is let your creativity flow. Arrange the pictures so they make sense to you. They can be categorized by goals, timeline, colour or randomly scattered over your poster.
Have fun with it, there really are no rules on how to make it happen. The only thing you should remember is that the pictures need to be meaningful to you so that when you look at them, you feel the emotion of the goal you want to achieve.
Here’s a vision board I recently created using old magazines:
If you want to create something similar, you’ll need:
You can also create an online vision board with Canva or Pinterest:
6. The Self-Reflection Challenge
This challenge is only for people who are ready for serious personal growth! Here are some of the best journal prompts, that are guaranteed to take you on a journey of self-exploration and dig deep into your subconscious.
Benefits
Self-reflection, a vital cognitive process, enhances emotional regulation and self-awareness while fostering personal growth. Neurobiologically, it engages brain regions like the prefrontal cortex and supports neuroplasticity. This introspective practice promotes resilience and adaptive behavior through enhanced understanding of one’s emotions, motivations, and experiences. Integrating self-reflection into daily routines benefits mental health and facilitates lifelong learning and development.
Here are the best journal prompts, written by biopsychologists, that readers absolutely love:
- 13 Thought-Provoking Journaling Ideas for Adults to Help You Gain Transformative Wisdom
- 21+ Liberating Journaling Prompts for Personal Growth: Break Through Limiting Beliefs
- 17 Tranquil Mindfulness Journal Prompts pdf for a Stress-Free Day
- 12 Unique and Creative Daily Journaling Questions for Self-Care
- 21 Game-Changing Stress Relief Journal Prompts to Elevate Your Day
- 40 Introspective Journaling Prompts for Therapy to Find Clarity and Healing
- 31 Transformative Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery: A Month’s Challenge
- 21 Vital Prompts for Journaling Through Breakup to Find Closure
- 80+ Powerful Journaling Prompts for Depression to Reclaim Your Life
- 31 Therapeutic Daily Journaling Prompts for Mental Health: Heal and Thrive
7. The Letter to Your Future Self Challenge
I love this challenge! When it comes the time to open a letter from my past self I am always excited to see what I was thinking and wishing for myself. It also provides an inside look into my growth, which I adore.
Benefits
This challenge will boost motivation, improve perspective-taking, and enhance self-compassion.
HOW TO DO A LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE?
- Write how you look right now; hair, clothes…
- What are your current favourites (food, drink, clothes, books, films, people…).
- What do you spend most of the time thinking about? What is taking a lot of your mental space?
- What are you currently working on?
- What do you hope to achieve in the future?
- Give your future self some wisdom.
- …
8. The Habit Tracker Challenge
Tracking your habits can provide valuable insights into your behavior patterns and help you build positive habits and break negative ones.
Benefits
Habit tracking engages the brain’s reward system through mechanisms involving dopamine release, reinforcing positive behaviors and facilitating self-regulation. This process not only strengthens neural pathways associated with habits but also enhances motivation and goal-directed behavior, promoting long-term behavior change and personal growth.
INNOVATIVE HABIT TRACKING JOURNAL ENTRY IDEAS
Instead of traditional checkboxes, use drawings, symbols, or colours to represent your habits. Here are a few examples of creative habit-tracking methods:
- Draw a small plant and colour in a leaf each day you complete your habit.
- Create a mosaic pattern where each tile represents a day.
- Draw a mandala and divide it into sections for each day of the month. Fill in a section each day you complete your habit, creating a beautiful, colorful pattern.
- Assign specific stickers or icons to each habit and place them on your calendar or habit tracker page whenever you complete a task.
- Create a puzzle with a piece for each day of the month. Each time you complete a habit, add a piece to the puzzle and watch the picture come together.
- Create a storyline or comic strip where each day you complete a habit, you add to the story or illustration.
You can also use some of the premade trackers and save yourself some time and planning:
9. The Visual Journal Challenge
At the core of journaling is self-expression, so don’t be afraid to get creative! Add some artistic pizzazz to your journal, and have fun with it. Experiment with different formats and styles of writing.
Whether you’re in the mood for some good old-fashioned free writing, mindmaps, bullet journaling or art journaling, find what resonates with you and follow it.
Benefits
Visual journaling stimulates creativity and offers a unique method for emotional expression by engaging various brain areas involved in visual processing. This practice allows individuals to explore and articulate emotions non-verbally, promoting self-discovery and enhancing mental well-being.
HOW TO ADD ARTISTIC PIZZAZ TO YOUR JOURNAL?
- Draw some sketches and doodles. (Want to learn how to doodle?)
- Make collages from old photos and newspapers.
- Hand letter or calligraphy a title.
- Use stickers and washi tape.
- Add colour with watercolours.
- Use dry flowers, leaves and feathers.
- Insert dear items like tickets, bills, part of clothing…
- …
10. The Bucket List Challenge
Lastly, for all adventure types we have a bucket list challenge-an opportunity to dream big and conquer our fears.
Write down whatever you’ve always wanted to do but felt too afraid to pursue, and then take action! Your bucket list is your chance to challenge yourself, embrace adventure, and make your dreams a reality.
Benefits
Writing a bucket list boosts motivation, provides a sense of purpose, and helps you identify your passions and aspirations.
HOW TO DO A BUCKET LIST JOURNAL ENTRY CHALLENGE?
- Reverse Bucket List: List five things you’ve already achieved or experienced that you’re proud of. Reflect on how these accomplishments have shaped who you are today.
- Comfort Zone Buster: Identify three activities or experiences that scare you a bit but intrigue you. Challenge yourself to add them to your bucket list and plan how you’ll overcome your fears.
- Random Acts of Kindness: Create a bucket list of ten random acts of kindness you want to perform for others. These could range from volunteering at a shelter to surprising someone with a heartfelt gift.
- Learn Something New: List five skills or hobbies you’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t yet. Include specific details about how you’ll go about mastering each one.
- Environmental Impact: Compile a list of sustainable practices and actions you want to incorporate into your lifestyle. This could include reducing plastic usage, supporting local farms, or planting trees.
- Cultural Immersion: Plan a series of cultural experiences you’d like to have, such as learning a new language, participating in a traditional ceremony, or trying authentic cuisine from different regions.
- Technology-Free Day: Dedicate a day to disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with yourself and nature. Include activities like hiking, reading a physical book, or practicing mindfulness.
- Memory Lane: Create a bucket list of places from your childhood or past that hold special memories for you. Plan visits or activities that will allow you to revisit these nostalgic spots.
- Epic Road Trip: Design an adventurous road trip itinerary that includes unconventional stops or destinations. Consider scenic routes, quirky landmarks, or off-the-beaten-path attractions.
- Creative Challenges: Challenge yourself to complete a series of creative tasks, such as writing a short story, painting a mural, or composing a piece of music. Include specific details about each creative endeavor.
