Why You’re Not Journaling

Ah, journaling. I will espouse the benefits of keeping a journal until I’m blue in the face. I think that keeping a journal can be a good thing for a lot of people. Yet, there are plenty of people who aren’t journaling. Maybe you have tons of reasons why you’re not journaling. 

Today, I’d like to address some of the common fears I’ve seen people express about starting a journal. Maybe I can assuage your fears.

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“I’m afraid my journal won’t be perfect.”

So, you’re afraid that your journal won’t be perfect, huh? Maybe your handwriting is messy, maybe you don’t think you’re a good writer, maybe you’re not much of an artist. Guess what? My handwriting is awful, I can’t draw for shit, and I’m not always confident in my writing skills. But I still love journaling anyway. 

The goal isn’t to create a masterpiece. Rather, the goal is to find a way to express yourself. Nobody is going to read your journal. You don’t even have to reread your journal if you don’t want to (though, there are some arguments for doing so). As for your handwriting – if it really bothers you and you don’t want to work on improving it, have you considered typing your entries? Doing audio journal entries? Video entries?

Don’t let fear of imperfection be the reason you’re not journaling.

“My life is boring.”

If you’ve ever said “my life is boring,” I see you. But here’s the thing: everyone thinks their lives are boring. Don’t let this be a reason why you’re not journaling. 

As I indicated above, no one has to read your journal. You don’t have to entertain anyone. 

So what do you write if you don’t know what to write? 

Well, certainly you have thoughts and feelings, right? If you don’t see the point in writing about your thoughts and feelings, you could start an entry with literally “I don’t understand the point of writing about my thoughts and feelings because…” and see where things take you.

Dee Nowak of Vanilla Papers writes: “If you’ve got writer’s block, write about gratitude.” And I think that’s solid advice.

Here are some other things you could try:

📝 Write about the last dream you had.

📝 Describe something you can currently see, hear, smell, or feel.

📝 Keep a collection of journaling prompts and pull one out. 

“I’m not journaling because I’m concerned about privacy.”

For some, their reason for not journaling relates to concerns regarding privacy. What if someone reads your private thoughts? That’s totally fair. Over the years, I’ve had various people, from family members to roommates, read my journals, so I can relate. 

If this describes you, here are some ideas

📝 Hide your journal and don’t tell anyone about it. If you don’t have a journal out in the open and no one knows it exists, who’s realistically going to look for it?

📝 Write in something that could feasibly be something else. For example, if you’re a student and you have notebooks for school, maybe you could use a spare notebook as a journal? If it looks like something you could be using for some other purpose, are people going to be looking at it?

📝 Keep your journal on a digital device that you can keep locked.

📝 Lock your physical journal. Did you know that you can buy journals that lock? You can also buy safes that look like other common household objects – like books. Maybe put your journal in something like that and then leave it on the bookshelf?

📝 Keep your journal with you at all times. No one can read your journal if it is on your person at all times, right? 

📝 Write in code. If you’re already familiar with a code or cipher, use that. There are some ideas here. 

Why are you not journaling?

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

Updated: Apr 11, 2025 @ 9:59 pm