"Dear Diary" energy. That's what stopped me from journaling for years. The whole practice felt embarrassingly earnest, like something a teenager would do while listening to sad music in their bedroom. Journaling was for people who had their lives together enough to document them, or for people who enjoyed navel-gazing self-reflection. I was neither. But eventually, I realized the "cringe" I felt about journaling was actually my discomfort with being honest with myself. It wasn't the act of writing that felt awkward; it was the vulnerability of putting my honest thoughts on paper without performance, without an audience, without filtering for how it would sound to someone else. And that discomfort? That's precisely why journaling is so valuable. We spend most of our lives performing some version of ourselves for other people. Journaling is the one place where you can drop that performance entirely and just be honest about what you're actually thinking and feeling, even the ugly, confused, contradictory stuff.
Once I reframed journaling from "documenting my life for posterity" to "having honest conversations with myself on paper," everything shifted. I stopped trying to write well-crafted entries and started just dumping whatever was in my head onto the page. Some days that meant angry rants. Other days, it was just to-do lists and random observations. There was no audience to impress, no format to follow, no "right way" to do it. I was using paper as a thinking tool, and suddenly it didn't feel cringeworthy anymore; it felt necessary. The other thing that helped was realizing that most successful people journal in some form. Journaling has long been a source of emotional relief and clarity, assisting people to understand their emotions better, build resilience, and track their growth over the years. It's not a quirky hobby for overly sensitive people—it's a practical tool that helps you process information, make better decisions, and understand your patterns. When I started seeing journaling as mental hygiene (like brushing your teeth for your brain) rather than a precious creative practice, it became much easier to do without overthinking.
If journaling feels cringeworthy to you, I'd challenge you to try it for one week with no expectations that it be "good" or meaningful. Don't start with "Dear Diary." Just write the date, start with "Right now I'm thinking about...", and see what comes out. Permit yourself to let it be messy, tedious, repetitive, or even stupid. You're not writing for anyone but yourself, and you can literally throw the pages away if you want. The point isn't to create something; it's to process your thoughts outside your head, where you can see them more clearly. After a week, notice if anything feels different. Do you think clearer? Less stuck? More aware of your patterns? If so, that's the value of journaling, regardless of how "cringe" it might feel. The discomfort you feel is usually the distance between who you perform being and who you actually are. Journaling helps close that gap. Ready to start a journaling practice without the cringe? Our journals at Wilson Wolf Journals are designed for real people working through real life, no "Dear Diary" required. Pick up your copy today.
