What Should I Include in a Recovery Journal?

Journaling can provide many benefits to the structure and organization of your recovery and adulthood responsibilities. While journaling is not for everyone, some people find great joy in keeping a journal.

Many individuals who dislike journaling often do not know where to start or how to structure a journal efficiently. Including the following five components in your journal can give you a basic structure you can build from. Over time, you can implement prompts and pages that are more specific to your needs and desires in your recovery journal.

Benefits of Keeping a Recovery Journal

Journaling is incredibly beneficial for many individuals, especially those who struggle with organization. This practice of keeping a journal can help you to keep your goals outlined and specified. It can help you organize your motives for recovery and process your thoughts and emotions.

At times, it is easier to write down how you are feeling rather than discuss it out loud. Using your journal, you can better understand the thought process that you are having. This can help you later communicate those emotions with your support system and your treatment team.

Implement the following journal components to gain the benefits of journaling through your recovery.

#1. Explain Your Self-Direction

As you work through your recovery, you have a direction you are moving toward. Think about where you want to be further into your recovery. Try to describe this future with specific details. What do you want your life to look like in a year, in five years, or in ten years? Who do you want to be at that time? How will recovery help you get there?

Reviewing your goals and specifying them is a great way to help you clarify and increase your self-direction. Write down your goals and the detailed steps to achieving them. As you write your goals down, specify what your life will look like when that goal is complete. This allows you to develop a clear image of your future, keeping you motivated to continue your recovery journey.

#2. Outline Your Treatment Plan

You have likely made a treatment plan with your team at Dream Recovery. Utilize this plan and break it down in your recovery journal.

This may seem to be a waste of time for some. After all, you are simply re-writing something you have already developed. However, writing is an effective form of helping people learn. Outlining your treatment plan in your journal can help you solidify the plan mentally.

You can break your plan down into different aspects, allowing you to follow up on your progress with ease. This creates a prime opportunity for reflection as well when you move forward through your journey.

#3. List Your Key Values and Strengths

Throughout recovery, it can be easy to lose sight of your values. When temptation arises, it is important to remember what your key values are. This can help you act more in line with what you want for yourself and who you want to be.

It is a great idea to write down what values you hold dear. Keeping your motives and values strong through recovery ensures that you are doing all of this for reasons that are important to you. Writing these down may seem simple. However, simplicity does not take away from the effectiveness of a practice. Taking the time to physically write the words down can help people retain their values.

Similarly, when moments of stress arise in recovery, you may find that you are focusing on what you are lacking or unable to accomplish. However, it is also important to remember your strengths. Take the time to write down the positive attributes that can be seen as a value to yourself or others.

#4. Journal Your Coping Mechanisms

As you continue through recovery, you will likely gain coping mechanisms that can be applied in stressful situations. While you have some currently, you will continue to gain more as you move through your journey.

Write down the current coping mechanisms that you use and what situations they benefit you in. Each time you develop a new coping mechanism, add it to your list. Leave room for additions in this area, as you can continue to add more of these throughout your entire journey.

If you find that one no longer works for you, take note of that. This journal prompt can help you to organize your coping mechanisms. It can be helpful to have a concrete list to refer to during moments of high stress.

#5. Use a Habit Tracker

Habit trackers are amazing resources to help you establish healthy habits and get rid of your negative practices. Write down approximately five habits that you wish to start implementing today. Have an area to check off each day for each habit you list. As you move through each day, take some time to reflect on your habits each night. Check off the ones you complete and acknowledge the ones you failed to accomplish.

Having a physical validation of completing your habits can increase people’s motivation to get them done. Habit trackers are a form of accountability that can assist you in creating new habits. The more you begin to do these practices, the more habitual they will become.

Once one of the habits becomes a natural routine, you can add a new habit to your tracker. This can help you continually seek self-improvement. Habit trackers are a great way to create healthy and sustainable habits. 

Journaling is an extremely beneficial practice to utilize in recovery, but many individuals struggle to start this practice because they don’t know how. Every journal may have a different outline. You may choose to implement pages that are more specific to your needs. Utilizing these journal prompt ideas can help you get a head start. Try adding pages that explain your self-direction, outline your treatment plan, address your key attributes and values, list your coping mechanisms, and track your habits. These prompts can help to keep you on the path to success in recovery. To learn more about these journal prompts and how this practice can benefit your recovery, reach out to Dream Recovery today at (657) 216-7218.