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This post is all about Deep Journal Prompts For Self Discovery And Reflection.
I have always been interested in personal development, or the idea that we can intentionally better ourselves. But it’s hard to better yourself if you don’t really know yourself.
That’s why we’ve put together these deep journal prompts for self discovery. If you are someone who has never really sat down and answered deep questions, but you’re interested in doing so, you will love this post!
This post has deep journal prompts for self discovery with important questions that cover topics like your mental health, inner critic, self awareness, negative thoughts, and more.
Pick and choose the journal prompt categories that you’re interested in for your own personal self-discovery journey, or use them all!
No matter what, you will find that using these journaling prompts is a fantastic way to be present, spend time with yourself, and ultimately get to know yourself better on your journey of self-discovery.
Quick Navigation:
- Journal prompts for your Mental Health
- Journal prompts for your Inner Critic
- Journal prompts for Self Awareness
- Journal prompts for your Future Self
- Journal prompts for Negative Thoughts
- Journal prompts for your Authentic Self
- Journal prompts for Self Love
- Best Affordable Journals
Deep Journal Prompts For Mental Health
If you are interested in improving your mental health, or just learning more about your mental health, you will find these self-discovery journal prompts to be very effective. Let’s dive in!
1. What is one thing that makes you truly happy?
2. Who do you laugh the hardest with?
3. Who is someone who seems to know you better than I know yourself at times?
4. Who is someone you can trust with anything?
5. Have you ever tried therapy? Why or why not?
6. What’s the best way you know how to take care of yourself?
7. What is your favorite form of self care? When’s the last time you did that?
8. Who brings out the best in you?
9. Which people can you hang out with and feel like your “true self”?
10. Think of a fun way to express yourself. What’s the first thing that came to mind?
11. Think of your closest friend. What qualities about them do you like?
12. How are you feeling right now? Rate how you are feeling on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being not great and 10 being extremely happy)
13. What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?
14. Describe your perfect day.
15. Write down the 5-10 best moments of your life.
Deep Journal Prompts For Your Inner Critic
Do you often criticize yourself in your daily life? If the answer is yes, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many of us have a little voice in our head that often likes to tell us that we aren’t good enough.
These deep journal prompts for your inner critic, though, will remind you that you absolutely are good enough!
1. What is something your inner critic tells you isn’t “good enough” but you know deep down that it is?
2. What’s a dream you have that you are scared to go for?
3. What’s been your biggest failure?
4. What’s been your biggest achievement?
5. What’s something you’ve done this year that you are really proud of?
6. When was the last time you got out of your comfort zone? What did you do?
7. What are you most worried about right now? Are those worries valid?
8. When’s the last time you felt truly confident? Who were you with? What were you doing? What were you wearing?
9. When’s the last time you tried something new? What was it? Did you like it?
10. Think about 5-year-old-you. What would you tell him/her?
11. What personality traits of yours do you absolutely love?
12. What personality traits do other people say that they love about you?
13. What’s something you did recently that you didn’t think you’d be able to do?
14. Ask your best friend to choose 5 words to describe you. Write them down.
15. What’s a goal you plan on accomplishing this year?
Deep Journal Prompts For Self Awareness
Have you ever used a self-discovery prompt to build your self awareness? If not, you are about to be amazed at just how much you can learn about yourself through these prompts.
1. What are 3 of your favorite qualities about yourself?
2. What is something that you want to work on?
3. What is something that you know you should do but you’ve been putting off?
4. Is there someone you need to apologize to or forgive?
5. Is there someone you haven’t talked to in a while that you should reach out to?
6. Do you owe anybody anything?
7. When was the last time you volunteered your time?
8. When was the last time you laughed until you cried?
9. What was the last fun thing you did? Why did you enjoy it so much?
10. What is your love language? How do you like to love others?
11. Are you on a personal growth journey? If yes, what are you currently working on?
12. What’s something you are scared of?
13. What’s one thing you want to do before your life is over?
14. How is your work going? Do you like your job? What’s one thing that you’d like to change about your current career?
15. What’s something you want to get better at? Is it reading more? Listening better? Being more consistent?
16. What’s something you find funny?
17. If you could time travel to any year in the past, what year would you go to?
18. What is a life lesson that you learned recently?
19. What is something that always distracts you?
20. What is one thing about you that only you know?
21. Describe your perfect Saturday.
22. What gets you in a flow state or lose track of time?
23. Do you have any secret talents?
24. Do you have any skills that you wish you would’ve done something with? Like singing? Or painting?
25. Do you have any recurring dreams? If so, what?
26. What’s something that you are nervous about in your life?
27. What is something that you don’t really like talking about?
28. What is your deepest darkest secret?
29. Do you have any collections?
30. What is your favorite book?
31. What genre of book do you prefer to read?
32. What is your favorite kind of food? Why?
33. Are you a good problem solver? Why or why not?
34. What is your biggest fear?
35. When’s the last time you took a big risk? What was the risk?
36. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Deep Journal Prompts For Your Future Self
There is no wrong way to answer these journal prompts about your future self.
Let your mind and imagination run wild with the dreams and visions that you have for your future self. Imagine the absolute best life for yourself, whatever that looks like for you.
1. When you think about your future self, where does he/she live?
2. When you think about your future self, what does he/she do on the weekends?
3. When you think about your future self, how do they take care of themself?
4. When you think about your future self, what kind of hobbies do they have?
5. When you think about your future self, what kind of friends do they have?
6. What does your dream life look like?
7. What would you tell your younger self?
8. Do you think your younger self would be proud of you?
9. When you think about your future self, what kind of person are they? Are they kind? Funny? Thoughtful? Generous?
10. What’s your dream job?
11. When you think about your future self, what new things have you tried? What new places have you been to? Have you tried any new foods have you tried? What experiences have you participated in?
12. If you are single, what’s your dream/ideal partner like?
13. When you think about your future self, what is their health like? Do they take good care of themselves? Do they exercise? Do they eat healthy food?
14. What’s something that you want your future self to be able to say one day?
15. Write something down to yourself 5 years from now. What do you hope that their life is like? What about their relationships? Job? Health?
16. What’s a goal that you want to hit by the time you are 25 years old? 50? 75?
17. What do you hope to be much better at by the time you are 30? 40? 50? Etc.
18. Where has your future self traveled to?
Prompts For Negative Thoughts
For your next journal entry, try these deep journal prompts for negative thoughts.
These deep journal prompts for self discovery will help you navigate your negative thoughts and hopefully help turn them around into thoughts that are much more positive and loving.
Positive self-talk can do wonders for your mental health, and that’s the goal of these journal prompts.
1. What negative thoughts are you having? Why do you think they are coming up?
2. Are these negative thoughts something that you think you can overcome on your own? Or do you think you should share them with someone?
3. Have you ever thought about sharing these negative thoughts with a close friend or with a therapist?
4. How often do you have these kinds of negative thoughts?
5. Think about what sparked your negative thoughts (example: social media is a cause of negative thoughts for many people). Is there a way you can set some boundaries around the thing that causes these negative thoughts for you? (example: can you spend less time on social media?).
6. Write down 3 things that you love about yourself.
7. Write down 3 things that you’ve done in the last 5 years that you are so insanely proud of.
8. Write down all of the people who love you.
9. Write down all of the fun things that you have done in the last year.
10. Write down something that you are looking forward to.
11. When you are feeling down, what are the things that help pull you out of a funk?
12. Do you have a safe space you can go to when you are feeling down? Maybe it’s your bedroom, the gym, a room in your house, or the beach?
Journaling Prompts For Your Authentic Self
You can use these self discovery journal prompts to truly get to know your true self. We spend so much time thinking about and loving other people, but these journal prompts are designed so that you can get to know YOU better!
1. When’s the last time you were truly excited? What were you excited about?
2. Who inspires you?
3. Who are you envious of?
4. What people do you love the most in this world?
5. What brings you joy?
6. How do you like to express yourself? Is it through your art? Clothing? Dance?
7. What is your favorite kind of music? Do you have a favorite song? Or a favorite artist?
8. What’s your ideal breakfast meal?
9. Do you prefer the beach or the mountains? Why?
10. What’s your favorite color? Why do you think that is?
11. If you have a partner, what do you like about them? Why do you think that you’ve fallen in love with love? Why are you with them?
12. What is your most prized possession?
13. Describe a time when you felt your life completely changed.
14. If you were ever to get a tattoo, what would it be?
15. What are you grateful for right now?
16. What’s your favorite childhood memory?
Journal Prompts For Self Love
Using Self Love journal prompts is a great way to truly practice self love. These journal prompts will help you remind you of all the truly wonderful things that you are and do and also remind you to take care of yourself on a more consistent basis.
1. What’s a simple thing that brings you joy?
2. Do you love yourself? How can you increase the love that you have for yourself? What needs to change?
3. When’s the last time you said “I love you” to yourself?
4. When’s the last time you exercised to take care of your body? When’s the last time you ate nourishing food? Drank lots of water?
5. Do you have a daily routine? If yes, is there anything you’d change about it? If no, what would your ideal daily routine look like if you had one?
6. Do you meditate? Have you ever tried it? Do you like it?
7. What is your favorite form of exercise?
8. Do you like to read? What’s the last book you read that you truly loved? Is there a book you have in mind that you’d love to read?
9. What’s your favorite hobby and when’s the last time that you did it? Is it visiting coffee shops? Thrifting? Crafting? Playing basketball? Going for long walks with your friends?
10. What’s the last thing that you bought yourself that you were truly so excited about?
11. When’s the last time you planned a trip for yourself?
12. What is your favorite free activity to do with someone you love?
13. What is your love language? How do you like to be loved?
14. Name 3 physical characteristics that you love about yourself.
15. What are your values? Ex. Integrity, honesty, kindness. Name 3 of your values.
Best Affordable Journals
Here are the best (and cutest!) affordable journals from Amazon.
1. Paperage Lined Journal Notebook on Amazon. This journal is a bestseller on Amazon. It comes in many colors, has a hard cover, and is medium-sized.
2. The Five Minute Journal on Amazon. This journal is great for reflection, manifestation, and mindfulness. It also only requires about five minutes of journaling a day if you’re short on time.
3. Artfan journal on Amazon. This journal has a beautiful design, and also comes in many colors.
Happy journaling 🙂
This post was all about deep journal prompts for self discovery.
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