A comprehensive guide to journaling

How to track, reflect, and shape the life you want in 2026

There’s something deeply healing about journaling every single day.

Maybe you do it too. Maybe you write down parts of your experience daily or sporadically, focusing on the day ahead or the one that just passed. Maybe you use paper and pen, or maybe you dump thoughts randomly into your phone notes.

The simple act of spending just a little more time with our thoughts than we would if we were speaking them aloud (simply because writing forces us to stay with them longer) makes everything more deliberate, more measured. Done daily, journaling creates little pressure valves for all the things that too often get stuck in our heads, in our nervous systems.

Have you ever tried sitting down to write on your worst day? Or right after a bad fight?The whole system releases. Everything spills out. You suddenly feel emptied of that inexplicable rage or sadness. It’s all been vomited onto the page. It’s out.

The ritual of journaling (tracking, rereading, spotting patterns) has been with me for decades.

The ritual itself is sacred. It allows me to pay attention not only to the events I live through, but also to the way I tell their story. Most importantly, it helps me visualize what I want to happen in my life.

I have several journals I write in (not all of them every day) but I keep the ritual alive with at least one journal daily. Not because I force myself to, honestly, but because writing has always been a sacred channel for me that helped me manifest so many things, one I’ve honored for as long as I can remember.

Below, I’ll share the different methods, structures, journaling tools I use for different stages of life and my very own last entries, to help you observe, release, pivot, and honor whatever phase you’re moving through.