This month on The Happiness Challenge, Klaudia is diving into the power of journaling! In Part 2 of our series, today’s episode is all about practical tools: Klaudia explores a variety of journaling styles, helps you discover which one fits you best, and shares a set of prompts you can use, even if you’re staring at a blank page. Whether you’re a seasoned journaler or just getting started, you’ll leave with inspiration and actionable tips to boost your happiness and self-reflection.
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Hello happiness seekers, welcome. My name is Klaudia and you are listening to the Happiness Challenge podcast where I test drive the best happiness hacks that science has on offer.
irst of all, my intention for:
with really much feelings in:
And to start with, I'm closing my LinkedIn newsletter and also my Instagram account.
So I'm sorry if you're on any of those platforms, but if you would like to stay in touch beyond listening to the podcast, connect with me on LinkedIn.
You can still follow or connect with me or subscribe to my substack newsletter and you have all the details on my website, the happiness challenge.co.uk. And the second announcement.
It's more exciting because it's important that we celebrate our successes and I'm just so happy because my book the Alphabet of Happiness in January was featured in Happy fool magazine, which is one of my favorite magazines, also in Best magazine. And also I had a chance to talk about my book on on Hoxtel radio with Incredible Chess victory which was just amazing.
It was my first radio studio recording and I just thought I'd share these as I'm very grateful and I'm so excited about this exposure. And this is what the Happy fool magazine actually kindly wrote about my book which I also felt was oh my God, they are so kind.
So they said we all strive for happiness and fulfillment, but how do we get there? Psychologist Claudia Mitura leads the way with her jargon free A to Z formula. Backed by expert insights and packed with practical tools.
You can begin taking small steps towards a life that best aligns with you and your values. And I really felt that is amazing. Okay, back to this month's topic. We are talking about journaling.
So in the episode 219 we heard from executive coach and speaker Madeline McQueen Queen who stress that journaling isn't about neat handwriting, the perfect notebook or doing it right. It's actually about creating a space to process what's going on inside you and journaling. And I love this line creates mental space.
It helps reduce reduce the swirl and brings clarity. I especially love the world's swirl. I definitely think sometimes that my brain is definitely full of multiple swirls.
So today episode is quite practical.
What I thought we going to cover is a few journaling styles, how to pick yours and how to actually set prompts that you can use even if you start staring at the blank page. So let's dive in. So let's dive into four journaling styles. Number one is free ride or brain dump.
And it's one of those styles when it's wonderful for overwhelm, anxiety, racing thoughts, decision fatigue.
I definitely use this few times before going to sleep and it's simple as setting a timer for maybe three to 10 minutes and starting with I or right now or I feel and then just writing whatever comes to your mind. There is no editing, no structure required. The idea is that we parking everything from our brain onto a piece of paper.
Second type of journaling is prompt let journaling. So this is a.
This is perfect if you are looking at the blank page and you think okay now what I supposed to be journaling but I don't know what I'm journaling about. And you want to build consistency and you also want some guided reflection and with some coaching empowering prompts.
The idea is that you pick a prompt and then you write five to ten lines and you stop when you feel something shifting. So clarity, calm, specific insight emerge but you get naturally to the end point of that specific specific prompt.
Now couple of things on choosing the prompts wisely.
So I think the biggest reflection I had around prompt is to is when I was writing my chapter for the book the Alphabet of Happiness questions which is all about how do we self reflect with our rumination. And I came across this research search by Dr. Tara Urik who specifically says that if we have prompts and questions starting with why?
Why did it happen to me? Why now?
Why is this so difficult then actually that will make us ruminate more whilst if we have questions starting with how and what, how could I approach this differently? What can help me move forward? What can I learn from here actually create a sense of agency and help us to take action.
So when you're choosing different prompts just be conscious of this distinction. And I definitely the moments when I was journaling and I needed to stop myself thinking I'm actually ruminating now.
Which it's maybe freeing to some extent but on another mm, it's actually now sucking me into very negative spiral and some favorite prompts to try in terms of happiness are what gave me energy today, what drained me and what's one tweak I can make and what does happiness look like for me this week? I think really lovely, really positive and very empowering prompts. The third type of journaling is structured daily check ins.
So this is perfect if you have very busy schedule and you just want to track your patterns, you want to very quickly engage in gratitude or you want to track your mood or energy. You just want a little bit of data to be put in on piece of paper.
So this might be very simple like today I feel or my energy is or one thing I need is one small win that I had today is one intention for tomorrow is so they are very quick kind of structured daily check in. But what's really interesting with a structured daily check in is that they quick and breathe.
But when we look at them across a month you can see some patterns emerging that might be some surprising and final one when it comes to journaling is problem solving or coaching journals.
So this is when we having specific challenges conflict, maybe our confidence dips, maybe we're making a big decision and we need to coach ourselves through this process and we need to structure our thoughts.
So the idea here is that you are naming the situation that you are currently experiencing, naming the feelings you are trying to really identify, what is the story that you're telling yourself and then you asking yourself okay, so what is one next step? Even if it is the smallest step possible, what is the one next step that you can take?
So I hope that this is a great summary when it comes to different types of journaling. And I think the best way to choose your style is simply ask yourself do I need freedom or do I need guidance?
Do am I feeling overwhelmed and I need to park my thoughts or I'm a little bit maybe stuck and I need to have a prompt?
Do I want a specific insight and therefore the coaching journal is quite interesting or do I want to just track how I feel or what I'm experiencing and that will be more about daily check in. So whatever you decide to choose, I would love you to try for the next seven days to pick two styles. For example free ride and structure.
Check in and do five minutes a day with both styles and then the end of the week keep the style that actually feels more easiest and more natural to you. And after two weeks have actually a quick reflection on what difference has journaling made to my happiness and well being.
So thank you so much for listening and I do hope that I will see you at the end of the month where I'll be diving into what actually science says about journaling for improved well being. There's lots of interesting studies out there.
In the meantime, I'll be also experimenting with different journaling styles, and I will share some of my findings, but for now, bye.
