Written by: Ruth Simonsen | Digital Media Manager

As the New Year makes its grand arrival and the resolutions start to flood every social media platform, a popular choice continues to be journaling. Whether it’s for feelings, logging gym stats or to fulfill your emo poetry dreams, journaling provides a wonderful resource to many.

Amity Deters, a fourth-year and star athlete on the Western track team, is one such person who finds solace in journaling. Deters first took up this hobby after seeing it on social media and deciding to curate it for herself. 

“I was going through a lot of changes,” Deters said, “so I wanted to track how I was feeling about them in an unbiased, no-placebo way.” 

Deters explained she did this through tracking habits, changes to her lifestyle and sleep schedule, as well as other small parts personalized to her life. 

“I try to focus on topics that will help me, ones that will benefit me and not cause harm or hyper fixation,” Deters said after being asked how she went about choosing topics to track.

Journaling is fantastic for keeping track of habits, both good and bad, as well as things like finances, water intake and sleep schedule. Unfortunately, remembering to log all of this information can become tiresome and tedious, leading to many people deciding to drop this hobby. 

While Deters does not claim to be an expert, she gave tips on staying motivated to keep up with journal entries.

“To be honest, sometimes I forget about it for a couple days,” Deters said. “The most important thing is that you’re not hard on yourself, because journaling is what you make of it.”

She recommends sharing entries with friends and family, to show off the goals that were met and the data that was collected. She also shared that journaling before or after classes is an easy way to remember to log entries and stay motivated. 

Journaling can be fun and a great way to destress and track health. Deters encourages everyone to find a comfortable, enjoyable way to journal for themselves. 

“Don’t try to make it too perfect or extravagant,” she said. “Get pretty markers and pens, go online for inspiration, get creative with your entries and don’t take it too seriously. It’s all for funsies and data.”

Contact the author at howldigitalmediamanager@mail.wou.edu