5 Journal Prompts to Start Your Morning Right

You’ve probably read and heard about the importance of a morning routine and of starting your day off right. When you begin the day focused on your own personal growth, you send a message that spending time on yourself is important. Also, as you fill your own cup you’ll be confident, motivated, and ready to tackle whatever the rest of the day throws your way.

I know that so many people say that they would love to start journaling, but that they just don’t know what to write. Should you write about your day? Is it like a diary entry? Or, is journaling for setting goals and making lists? The good news is that there’s no right or wrong way of doing it, it’s completely up to you.

However, if the starting part is keeping you stuck and you’re wondering how to journal in the morning, here are 5 journal prompts to start your morning right.

What Are 3-5 Things You’re Grateful for Today?

If you’re trying to come up with journal prompts for the morning, try incorporating one about gratitude. Even on the worst mornings, every single one of us can come up with something to be grateful for. It might be as simple as the cup of coffee you’re drinking right now or maybe you’re grateful for a specific person in your life. Then, if you’re feeling down or discouraged later on in the day, you can always refer back to your gratitude list from your journal prompts.

What Are You Excited about Today?

Personally, this is one of my favorite morning journaling prompts and one that is vastly underrated. Having just one thing to look forward to can completely change the trajectory of your day. You can also turn the things that you look forward to into weekly habits so that you have something to look forward to for each day of the week. For example, maybe you get Starbucks on Wednesdays or go on a walk with your best friend after work on Mondays. It’s great to journal and keep track of the things that get you excited because this can be a good reminder to encourage yourself to keep doing those things.

How Can You Compliment Yourself Right Now?

Now, we have to throw in some self-love so think about a few journal prompts for self-love, including the one above. Most people, particularly women, aren’t great at complimenting themselves, but you should! Imagine that your parents or a best friend are standing right in front of you, how would they compliment you? What might they have to say? At first, this might seem cheesy or silly, but you’ll find that with a little practice you’ll have no problem throwing out compliments left and right.

What Do I Want to Focus On Today?

This is another great question to add to your morning journaling routine. It’s easy to let the entire day slip by going from meeting to meeting and checking Slack messages or email. Then, before you know it it’s 5 PM and you feel like you didn’t really accomplish much. If this sounds like you, try to pick one thing to really focus on. This could be working on a presentation you’ll give next month, working on a report, or anything that is not necessarily urgent but really needs to get done. Don’t worry about doing everything, just have one focus at a time. Then, if you complete your area of focus, anything beyond that is a huge win!

How Do I Want to Feel at the End of the Day?

Journaling in the morning is an opportunity to focus not only on goals and targets but to also check in with yourself and how you feel. Maybe you’re in a season of life where you’re constantly running around with a million things to do. For you, maybe you just want to feel rested. This might mean that you need to cut back on a few things, go to bed an hour earlier or have a strict cutoff where you don’t work on your side hustle after 8 PM. Or, perhaps you really want to feel accomplished after a long day. Once you know how you want to feel, think about what you will need to do to have that feeling you want. To feel accomplished you need to set achievable goals and maybe you need to cut out social media or Netflix on specific days. Use some good old trial and error and see what works and feels right to you.

Now, you’re probably super pumped and ready to start your morning journaling. But, for many of us, we have great intentions but don’t always follow through. One of the best ways to make sure that you do what you say you’re going to do is to plan ahead. If you don’t have one, get a digital planner and make a note in your schedule to set your alarm for 5-15 minutes earlier so that you’ll have time to journal in the morning. Give it a try and see yourself start to flourish!