My Biggest Tip for Beating Perfectionism in Journaling

In high school, my best friend and I were known as the Perfectionists. We had high standards for ourselves when it came to our school work, our extracurricular activities, and our jobs. If someone asked us to do something, they knew it would be done and be done well. Extremely well.

While I have relaxed some over the years, I still have a high standard I hold myself to. Remember that strength of “responsibility” I mentioned last time? I tend to beat myself up if I don’t meet a deadline or forget to follow up with someone. I feel horrible about it and do everything I can to make it up to the other person.

This perfectionism can show up in many areas of life, including our journaling. In fact, I dare say it’s one of the biggest obstacles I see women facing as they start a journaling practice of their own.

But it’s tricky. It doesn’t always look like perfectionism. So today, we’ll talk about the disguises perfectionism can wear in your journaling and what you can do to overcome it.

Ways Perfectionism Shows Up in Journaling

Perfectionism, according to Merriam-Webster, is described as “a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable.”

And it can masquerade itself in a lot of different ways when it comes to our journaling practice. In other words, it looks like one thing, but if we look a little deeper, it reveals its true nature: we are aiming for something that is unrealistic.

Here are a few ways perfectionism shows up in journaling. I wonder how many you might recognize within yourself.

Way #1: Daily Journaling

First, perfectionism looks like feeling pressure to journal every day. As soon as we miss a day, we feel like a failure.

Now, this pressure can come from others or it can come from yourself. Either way, you have adopted it as a mindset and expectation that journaling must happen every day. So when you miss a date, it upsets you enough that you just stop writing.

This is especially true in dated journals. A blank page feels like the end of the world.

Way #2: Time Journaling

The second way, which is very similar to the first one, is that we think we have to journal for a certain amount of time each time we journal. Say, twenty minutes or thirty minutes.

So when we only write for five or ten minutes, we have this idea that it wasn’t a true journaling session. We must not have gone deep enough. We doubt our ability to journal in the first place.

Way #3: Upkeeping Several Journals

The third way is that we keep a lot of different journals, each with its own purpose, and when we start slowing down in one, we grow frustrated or just give up on all of them.

So, for example, maybe you have a gratitude journal, where you aim to write three things each day that you are thankful for. You also have a prayer journal, a place to track prayer requests and write out your prayers to God. On top of that, you have a therapy journal, a Bible journal, and an art journal.

And boy, that’s a lot, isn’t it? Each one might have its own rhythm and routine, but how easy it is to let one slip.

Way #4: Messy Journal Entries

The fourth way is that we have messy journal entries. This might mean sloppy handwriting or crossed out words or ink that gets smeared. It might also look like jumbled thoughts or incoherent sentences.

Or maybe we edit ourselves as we go. We get this idea in our minds that journals need to be literary works of art, so when they are more casual or conversational, they don’t rise to our standards.

So when we do these things—when we make mistakes or write less than ideal words—we find it unacceptable. It’s not okay.

Way #5: Planning and Preparation

A fifth way perfectionism can show up is in the way that we plan and prepare to journal. We have to have just the right notebook, and the perfect pen that writes fluidly, and the right colors. We need the right space to sit and the right amount of light and quiet. We want the candle with our favorite scent.

If you’re a planner, like me, you love to figure all of this out. The planning is fun! But then when it comes to actually sit down to journal, we don’t do it. We don’t want to ruin the notebook or use up the ink in our pen.

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My Biggest Tip

Perfectionism prevents journaling because, once we’ve fallen short, we just give up.

Miss a day? I quit.

Make a mistake? I quit.

Unreadable writing? I quit.

Level of writing not high enough? I quit.

But, my friend, we cannot let perfectionism win here. We have to find a way to get over it.

Now, when it comes to beating perfectionism in your journaling, there are a lot of things I could talk about: giving yourself grace, letting go of control, intentionally being messy or making mistakes. And I would invite you to consider all of those. Maybe even journal about some of those things. (wink)

But my number one tip? Only keep one journal.

It doesn’t matter if you are writing things you are thankful for or journaling through the Bible. It doesn’t matter if you are praying to God or copying down quotes. It doesn’t matter if you are making a list for a big decision you need to make or working through homework from a counseling session.

Just put it all in the same place.

I—and those I work with—have found this to be the most freeing practice in our journaling. In fact, at a retreat I spoke at in November, one of the women shared that this was the key to her journaling.

She didn’t have to think about “which journal do I put this in?” or “did I name things I was thankful for yesterday?” She just opens her journal as regularly as she can and writes about what is on her heart.

Now, you can still work on those other things: the grace, the routine, the control. But practically speaking, this is what has made the biggest change in women continuing with their journaling practice even when they feel like they have fallen short.

Journal Prompts:

Again, this week, I want to offer you several journal prompts to explore this idea of perfectionism, especially when it comes to our journaling practice. Feel free to work your way through all of them or just focus on one or two.

1. Where do you get frustrated in your journaling? Might this be perfectionism in disguise?
2. How does perfectionism show up in your daily life, and what areas are most affected by it?
3. What problems does perfectionism cause for you? How is it getting in the way?
4. Write about a time when you tried to be perfect and it didn’t turn out as you expected. What did you learn from that experience?
5. What’s the difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection? How can you distinguish between the two?
6. What would it look like if you allowed yourself to make mistakes or be “imperfect”? How would that feel?

If you want to learn more about journaling together with God, you can also grab my new PDF guide, “20 Ways to Journal with God.” I provide a brief summary of 20 different journaling methods and then offer you a journal prompt to try it out. You can find that at lovedoesthat.org/store.

Prayer

God, You are perfect, but we confess that we are not. When we strive for such an unattainable standard, we grow frustrated and weary. Help us to embrace our limitations, to receive Your grace, and to keep trying, even when we feel like we fall short. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

RELATED RESOURCES + EPISODES:

• 20 Ways to Journal with God (PDF)
• Episode 164: 3 Key Lessons for Journaling in Difficult Seasons
• Episode 153: Can 5 Minutes Journaling Really Make a Difference?

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