Keeping a journal is a powerful way to help you achieve success as an artist. It’s a way for you to capture thoughts, ideas and information that pertains to your life. However, it takes diligence and determination to make sure you don’t lose the nuggets of wisdom and inspiration that come your way.
Here are 7 reasons you will want to keep a journal:
1. It helps you clarify and solve problems. Let’s say, for example, that you want to be able to spend more time working on your art at night, but on most nights you find yourself too tired to focus. Because of your journaling, you discover that the tiredness is connected to eating sugary carbs with your dinner. You replace the sugary carbs with fresh fruit and as a result, are able to spend two extra hours working on your art in the evenings.
2. Journaling is a way to save your ideas and dreams until you can put them in action. You may wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea on how to sell your art. Because you have your journal on the nightstand, you can write down your idea. Many good ideas are lost because they were never written down.
3. It’s great way to help you discover your God-given destiny. What desires do you have on the inside of you? What talents do you have? What are your goals? What does your dream life look like? Write these things down and read through them regularly. You will see certain patterns emerge and it will give you insight into your calling.
4. It helps you remember important information. As you read books or listen to audios, you will learn things that can help you succeed in your life. However, generally, people only hold on to about 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear. By writing down what you learn and reading through it regularly, you can retain and benefit from the information you acquired.
5. By writing and consistently reading your journals, you keep solutions to problems in front of you. For example, I might want to use tulle in my art but can’t figure out a good way to fasten it to my canvas. As I read through my art journals I can see, that in the past, I stitched the tulle to cardstock and then glued the cardstock to my canvas. Problem solved.
6. It helps you organize your thoughts and clear your mind. For instance, as you are working on a fall-themed piece of art, an idea floats into your mind of creating art with gold and silver painted leaves. Because you don’t want to forget your great idea, you keep mulling it over in your head, which can be quite distracting. However, if you write your idea in a journal, you can come back to it later. This will free your mind to focus on your current project.
7. Journal writing will help you see and take advantage of opportunities that come up. For example, in my journal I expressed an interest in joining an art group in my community. A few months later, someone in our town started an art group and I signed up to be a part of it.
I’ll often record ideas of assemblages or mixed media that I want to create and what I need to make it happen, then when I’m in a store or at a garage sale, and I see something that I think will work in my art, I’ll know to buy it.
Journal writing can be an essential component to your success, but it’ll only work if you’re committed to writing and reading through your journals regularly. Make a commitment to not allow busyness, preoccupation, and tiredness to keep you from capturing those life-changing ideas.