Your Story Matters: Overcoming the Perfect Journal Fallacy

Let me set the scene.

You’re at your favorite bookshop. You’ve had your coffee, done some people-watching, and have picked up a few books that will be coming home with you, and as you walk toward the counter to pay for your haul, you see a shelf with journals on it.

You are transfixed. The journals are beautiful and rife with endless creative possibilities. In a flash, you envision yourself writing your deepest thoughts, sketching ideas for that next big project, planning your novel, your adventures to Europe, writing your most important lists, and recording your secrets in this new place.

You carefully select the journal that most appeals to you, perhaps based on color or size. Happily, you pay for it and head home to use it to unleash your creativity.

You come home, set the journal on your desk, and move on with your afternoon.

The next day, you glance at the journal. You think of something you’d like to write in it but feel noncommital. It’s so beautiful and clean, I’m not sure this thought is worth it. You walk away.

A day later, you’ve finished work early and are tidying up your desk. There’s that journal again. You sit down, open it up, and reach for a pen. You think, Oh, I’m not sure this is the right pen for this journal. Is it fancy enough? You put the journal down and go to grab dinner.

Weeks pass, and the journal is now under a pile of work papers or perhaps has taken a spot on your bookshelf. It may even sit next to another forgotten and unused journal you received as a gift during last year’s holiday!

If this has happened to you, don’t worry; you aren’t alone.

Most everyone with a journaling practice has experienced something similar. It’s what I call the perfect journal fallacy, where we convince ourselves that using the journal for its very purpose, recording our ideas and thoughts, is somehow a bad thing to do.

So, how do you overcome this?

Open the journal and write something.


Anything.

Even just a sentence or two is a good start.

Don’t worry about the pen you use, the time of day, the music, or the mood. While all of those aspects can be a part of an established journaling practice, the most essential role of someone who journals is to write down what’s on their mind.

If you’re still struggling with getting started, remember this: Someone created that journal for you, and you can use it however you wish. Your thoughts and ideas are worthy of being recorded within its pages, as are your most mundane notes, todos, and doodles.


The journal on the bookshelf collecting dust is yours; you can do what you want with it. Use it as the tool it’s intended to be, and allow it to help you unlock the benefits of writing down your thoughts. Your story matters. Start writing it down today.