Does happiness feel unachievable for you? Your emotions seem to be all over the place, but you can never really understand why? What if there was a way to understand why you feel the way you do?
It’s time to do some self-reflection activities for your mental health, and the best way to do that is through a mood journal.
In this article, we’ll explore why mood diaries are an exceptional way to self-reflect and improve your happiness.
Self-reflection is your ability to see and evaluate your own cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes. Self-reflection helps you become more aware of yourself, helping you recognize what your strengths and weaknesses are, how you can grow and improve, and understanding why you do the things you do.
For any person to have growth, it’s important to be able to introspect and analyze their thoughts and feelings.
What’s a Mood Diary?
A mood diary, or a mood tracker, is a tool you can use to record and analyze your emotions over a period of time. There are platforms like TheLiven app which offer mood trackers.
In these trackers, you note down how you feel on a scale of ‘Terrible’ to ‘Awesome’. Then, you list out the feelings that made your mood the way it is. This is then followed by a few non-specific questions, asking you who you’re with, where you are, and what you’re doing.
By answering all these questions, you now have a record of how you felt, and things associated with why you felt that way logged in for the day.
You may also consider being more specific by writing down notes about why you felt that particular way. As you repeat the process day after day, you’ll be able to analyze your emotional state over time. It helps you identify patterns and triggers, and even helps you process adverse emotions.
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How Can A Mood Diary Make You Happier?
When you’re constantly tracking your feelings, you’ll be able to decipher its causes, helping you understand its triggers and patterns.
In doing so for negative feelings, you’ll be able to avoid your triggers and even create an action plan for improvement. You’ll gain more insight into your moods, helping you with:
All of these help you deal with stress in a healthier manner, leading to less chances of burnout, better productivity, and an overall better sense of wellbeing.
Starting a Mood Journal
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If you wanna work on being happier by using a mood journal, you need to know how to start. The steps are simple, just follow what’s written below, and you’ll be golden in no time:
Picking The Right Tool
In order to start mood journaling, you need the right tools. It can be as simple as using a pen and a notebook, or even your notes app.
If you want something more focused, you can try using platforms like The Liven app, where you’ll have access to a mood tracker template. Since this has mood journaling in mind, it has a slider for emotions, a feeling tracker, and even calendars and graphs that can help you visualize your data.
Setting Reasonable Expectations
You don’t need to record every change in mood you have throughout the day. Start small, and build up from there.
It can feel daunting to write about your feelings, but with time, it’ll make you feel much better and help you understand yourself better. Being too demanding of yourself right from the start might put you off of journaling, so set reasonable goals so that you can build a foundation.
Be patient with yourself, and don’t beat yourself up if you take time to become consistent.
Making It a Habit
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You may not feel negative emotions everyday, but that doesn’t mean you should stop journaling.
You need to be consistent on good and bad days, because it’s the best way to recognize patterns in your own behavior.
Setting aside a period of time every day to journal can help. It can also help to focus on just one issue or one specific emotion you’re trying to figure out at a time. Once you’ve built a habit, you can expand to track more your moods and triggers.
Being Patient With Yourself
Progress is slow, and it only comes with perseverance. You can’t use a mood journal for a week and expect to see massive changes right away.
It’ll take a while of commitment before you notice any patterns or learn things about yourself. Be patient, and you will have that moment where it all clicks into place.
As time goes on, you’ll be able to form links, write down observant and honest feelings, and decipher meaningful data from your entries.
Prompts For Mood Journaling
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It can be difficult to get the words going sometimes when you’re staring at a blank piece of paper. If you need help getting the words out, consider some of the following:
For Further Inspiration
What moods did I experience today?
What caused my moods, and how did I respond?
Were my moods reasonable for the situation?
Are there any patterns I repeated that should be changed?
What’s within my control to change?
To Explore Emotions
What am I feeling right now?
Is there a place in my body where I feel this emotion?
Do I have physical sensations with this emotion?
Am I avoiding any particular emotions?
Is there a healthy way to express my emotions?
How can I cope better with difficult emotions?
Conclusion
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Through self-reflection, we gain the information necessary to become the best versions of ourselves.
Mood journals make that journey far easier, allowing you to gain deeper insight of yourself, develop better coping strategies, and even develop a greater sense of self-compassion for yourself.
Your happiness will only come from within you, and self-reflection is the place to start. With a mood journal, self-reflection becomes that much easier.
Disclaimer:
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