30 Amazing Journal Prompts for the New Year

Journaling can be a vital tool in determining your state of mind. It allows you to sort through your feelings, reflects on your inner thoughts, and set goals. Journal prompts are particularly helpful if you’ve just started journaling and don’t know where to start.

People who journal regularly report better moods, reduced rumination, and increased belief in one’s self. Try journaling today and help improve your worth today! Pick out a couple, at most 5 and write them out, or pick one a day for a cool 30-day challenge!

You can use journaling along with other mental wellbeing activities like meditation, breathing exercises, or yoga to truly nurture mental health.

30 Journal Prompts to Help You Start

Check out this list of 30 journal prompts in 3 different categories, feelings, past reflection, and future goal setting. Use these to inspire and guide you in your journaling. You don’t have to use them verbatim. It is vital you expand on the ones you want, even taking a few days to truly write out everything you feel. Analyze, reflect, and grow.

Emotion Based Journal Prompts 

Here are emotion-based prompts designed to help you dig deeper to resolve and discover your emotions. Writing out our emotions can help reduce feelings of being overwhelmed by decluttering the mind.

• What is meaningful to you in your life
• What are 5 things you love or respect about yourself
• What is something you admire about yourself
• What were instances of negativity and how did you overcome
• What are ways you can deal with negativity
• What are coping mechanisms you can use for stress
• What are 10 things you appreciate about your life or the people in your life
• What areas in your life make you feel joy
• What areas in your life can you change for the better
• What are ways to improve wellbeing daily

Reflections of the Past Prompts

These self-reflection prompts are great for discovering new aspects about yourself and being more in tune with who you are and who you want to be. Self-reflection questions allow you to see your past to reconsider actions and work through any instances that were negative.

• What is something you are proud of from the past 3 months
• What challenges have you overcome and how did you do it
• What is something you deserve to be celebrated for
• What are 10 things you have or have done that you are grateful for
• What is a scenario where you looked on the bright side of things
• What instance in the past did you act with compassion
• What was a situation in which you took the high road
• What lessons did you learn about yourself
• What person are you grateful for being in your life

Goals for the Future

These are 10 journal prompts designed to help you think about and write out goals you may have for the year. When we write out goals, we can create plans to achieve them. You can help reduce stress and worries by detailing your wants and needs.

• What is an important need you want to be fulfilled
• What would you like to feel this year
• What are 3 important priorities for this year
• What are 3 valuable goals and what actions can you take to achieve them
• What are 10 things you want to learn this year
• What actions can you take to bring you joy in your life
• What new experiences do you want to nurture this year
• In what ways can you push your comfort zone and stretch yourself in
• What are ways to support mental, physical, and emotional health 
• What self-care habit can you incorporate this year

The Takeaway

Use some of these 30 journal prompts to inspire your reflections this year. Journaling can help declutter the mind, improve mood, and set goals in an achievable way. The main categories are emotion-based prompts, self-reflection based prompts, and goal-setting prompts. Each of these is great in order to reevaluate your life, appreciate instances, and offer more care overall to your wellbeing.

Use the prompts as inspiration, you can change them up, do as many as you want, or stick with a couple and expand on the ideas daily. There is no wrong way to journal as long as you feel improvement.

Wellbeing is a lifestyle, in which you make choices to improve your life, physically, mentally, and emotionally. It consists of practices that become habits that allow health and happiness to flourish. Journaling is a useful tool that can be used along with other mental wellbeing practices to improve mental health and wellness.

Remember that health starts from within! Give your body the nutritional building blocks to support wellbeing daily and watch how overall wellness flourishes.

Never forget about gut microbiota health. Microbiota health plays a huge role in mental wellbeing. Gut microbiota affects everything from your skin health, to your metabolism, and even your ability to build muscle. 

Check out all the resources you need to take care of gut health today for free here!