How To Keep a Mood Journal

Diaries are usually very helpful in managing what happens to us on a daily basis. Emotional diaries have the particularity that they can help us restructure our thinking.

I spent a long time investigating how to create a mood journal. However, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find anything. There was a lot of theory, but I didn’t know where to start. There weren’t any examples anywhere. So, I decided to grab my own notebook and start to manage my emotions my way. The experience was so positive that today I am going to share it with you. 

You can keep a mood journal by writing your emotions down exactly as you feel them. However, emotions tend to be disorganized and doing it like this can be chaotic, which isn’t helpful. Personally, I am a visual person and I like visual aids. This helps me use just the right amount of words, to be concise, and not beat around the bush.

You can write every day if you need to. Or just write when you feel the need. The important thing to remember is that your mood journal isn’t just for negative emotions like anger, frustration, and anxiety.

It is also for positive emotions like happiness, euphoria, and joy. This will help you get to know yourself on a deeper level. It will give you a jump-start in the beautiful process of attaining emotional intelligence.

Steps to making a mood journal

To create a mood journal, the first step is to get a notebook dedicated for this purpose alone. That way you don’t have your notes all scattered around in different places. When they are all in one place, you can return to your mood journal whenever you need to and analyze them from a different perspective.

Once you have a notebook, it’s time to begin. When you’re writing, you should be calm, alone, and not in a hurry. That way it will be easier to connect to your emotions and listen to what they have to tell you.

One of the ways to make your mood journal is like this: draw four columns with four titles. The titles should be situation, emotion, response, and suggestions. Let’s take a look:

This is an example of how a person might react to a particular situation. In this case, the situation is speaking in public. The person explains step-by-step how they feel, what emotions they have, how they react, and what suggestions they have to resolve the situation. As you can see, this is a simple, clear, and concise way to manage your mood.

Managing your emotions is good for you

Writing in your mood journal consistently will help you understand yourself better. You will be able to identify the problem areas in your life and notice which emotion comes up the most. Is it fear, or maybe insecurity? Being aware of it will help you come up with suggestions so that you can put them into practice and not just leave them on the page.

If you are a person with a lot of obsessive thought patterns, a mood journal can help you stop them. You’ll realize that analyzing and reflecting on events will make you feel much better. You’ll be flooded with a pleasant sensation of health and well-being. You can manage the positive emotions that you have too.It will enable you to focus your attention on all the good things that happen in your life. Here’s another example:

Now you have all the tools and visual examples you need to make a mood journal. Your journal can help you deal with your emotions better. However, there’s no one perfect way to do it. You can add other columns if you think you need them, or take one away that you don’t need. It is your mood journal; make it into what you need. Happy writing!