Reading old journals used to be tedious and embarrassing. It was frustrating to see how many times I had profound, "life changing" realizations, only to discover I've had the same realization over and over again in the years preceding - seemingly never retaining the lessons and ideas.
One thing that helped was building in space for dialogue with myself. Now, I only write original journal entries on the left side of a notebook and leave the right side for future responses. I make a habit of revisiting journal entries from a week, a month, and a year prior, etc, and expounding on the right side of the page with lessons learned later, counter points, and context from an "outside" perspective.
Naturally, this forms a sort of distillation of ideas, refining the concepts most relevant to me at any given moment, and keeping them present in my mind. It promotes a sense of continuity of self, and self-compassion as I'm frequently reminded of my growth and ability to change.
> ...Now, I only write original journal entries on the left side of a notebook and leave the right side for future responses. I make a habit of revisiting journal entries from a week, a month, and a year prior, etc, and expounding on the right side of the page with lessons learned later, counter points, and context from an "outside" perspective...
This is the sort of thing that if one was a famous person...then after their death, historians would consider a gold mine to discover! For example, when the journal of Nikola Tesla waas found and in addition he had entries years l;ater of his thoughts about aid original entries, that would be doubly-amazing. This is no less amazing of an idea for us mere mortals! Thank you for sharing this seemingly simple but awesomely wonderfuly idea!!!
I've experienced the same repetitive realizations/ideas. I have kept 3 different files going back 10+ years: did.md which contains notes/thoughts about any interesting events by date, ideas.md which contains business/project ideas, and resolutions-yyyy.md. Whenever I revisit them, I'm always struck by the same thoughts/ideas that come up over and over again. The ideas.md file is the one that cracks me up the most--I have repeating project ideas with the same/similar set of features that occur every few years.
Yes it does. I don't journal every day, I keep each year to about 40-50 A4 pages and I won't write down all the banal stuff. The value lies in the fact that I will usually look at what life was like a year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years, 10 years ago and past-self is there telling me without the rose-tinted glasses. It makes me grateful for what I have today. If I need motivation today, the struggles that were written down serve as a reminder of what needed to be done to get to the present and that effort is required now to get to a higher plane tomorrow, next year, 5 years from now.
