Small Victories and Fresh Starts

I did something over the weekend that I haven’t done in ages: I completely filled up every page in a journal.

I use a brand of hardcover notebook called Leuchtturm1917 for journaling my personal thoughts, feelings, and prayers. The regular A5/medium size has 251 individually numbered pages and comes with a blank table of contents in the front, two ribbon bookmarks, a set of pre-formatted label stickers to write titles and dates on, and a paper pocket glued inside the back cover for storing random flat things like photos and scrap paper. I looked back at the first entry and discovered I’ve been writing in this particular journal for over a year.

As you may know from a previous blog post, I only recently restarted the habit of journaling every day. I’m a notorious starter-stopper. I’ll begin the process of forming (or breaking) a habit for about a week or two, then something random will cause me to forget and lapse. This truth has applied to my journaling habit for as long as I can remember. It’s been a bit discouraging.

I would go without journaling for months or even years. Then I’d come back to it, wanting to start fresh. And you already know what that means…

I couldn’t just “start fresh” using the same notebook I’d used previously. I often wasn’t even sure where the old notebook was anymore. As a symbol of my recommitment, I would buy a new journal and start again. My life is littered with notebooks in which the first quarter to half of the pages are filled, and the rest is completely blank.

But this weekend, I broke that trend. When I started journaling again months ago, I chose to go back to one I’d already started, just to prove to myself I could finish it. And now, I’ve used the last page in my current notebook, so I’m moving on to another one.

And with the new one, I’m giving myself another fresh start by using a new format.

I’ve been writing in a journal with lines that are about 5mm apart (for context, college-ruled notebook paper has lines that are about 7mm apart). That’s way too skinny a space for my crazy handwriting. My words end up feeling cramped, and each row of words overlaps the row above and below it.

So I’m going to do something a little different: I’m going to test out using an unlined, sketchbook-style notebook. Not only do I want to journal my thoughts and feelings in it, I also want to challenge myself to stretch my visual artistic skills and try going back to sketching and maybe even “painting” with brush pens. This new journal has fewer pages but thicker paper, so it will take all forms of ink much more easily than the old one.

Hopefully, this new format will allow my handwriting some space to breathe, and maybe I’ll even learn how to write more neatly and in straight lines without needing lined paper to guide me (even though my new journal came with a lined piece of paper to put under each blank page as a guide). I’ve tried writing on unlined paper before, but I gave up because it felt too “messy” and imperfect.

Well, I think it’s time to get messy again.

As I blogged about previously, I built this habit by making myself write a full page every day. But the amount I wrote on each page was defined by the space I had to fill up between the lines on the page. With an unlined journal, there will have no such restrictions, so I may find more freedom to expand my creative horizons and write more freely.

I am a wholehearted believer in celebrating small victories. I believe that big victories are just a bunch of small victories all piled up on top of each other, but big victories are much harder to achieve and take more time. I find it encouraging to set a small goal and celebrate it, because these are more likely to be things that can be celebrated on a regular basis, rather than just occasionally. In celebrating small victories, I can find more joy in my day-to-day life and eventually celebrate big victories. Plus, celebrating the small ones makes the big ones even more meaningful because I know how many small ones it took to make a big one.

I’m proud that I’ve finally filled up a notebook for the first time in quite a while. And now I’m ready to do it again—with a twist.