For 2026 I'm going to do a different journaling practice: glimmer journaling. A "glimmer" is a small moment of joy or happiness. My intention to capture these little bits of happiness is two-fold.
I don't just want to create a record of these moments of happiness. More important is the practice of looking for and noticing these happiness-inducing moments. There is research that shows this type of practice trains your brain to seek out and notice the good things, instead of focusing on our natural negativity bias.
In the past I have journaled Good Things That Happened, but looking back I noticed they often tended to be difficult things that turned out okay. Which itself is a good practice, to learn that you are capable of difficult things, but that isn't the practice I want this year.
Similarly I've done gratitude journaling in the past, but that tended to be things I was grateful for having (my home and family, for example) because I would suffer without them. Again, it's a good practice for helping you appreciate what you have, but it's not what I'm going for this year.
The types of things I'll write in my glimmer journal: visiting my adult children, a fun day out with my husband, wildlife sightings, catching up with friends over coffee, etc. Even smaller things will count: petting the cat, a beautiful sunset, spending time reading a good book, a funny text.
I'm looking forward to making a point to seek out happiness every day, write it down, and look through my pages of daily happiness. For this practice I will use a dated day per page diary, which will encourage me to write something every day and not skip a day or leave blank pages.
Will you do a journaling practice in 2026?
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| Day per page minimalist wide rule free printable available from Diaries 2026 tab above |
I have recently taken up Nature Journalling, for similar reasons, to notice the little things and be more in present when being outdoors, but also because I think the practice will benefit me as a scientist.
ReplyDeleteA friend mentioned 'gratitude', so I asked what she meant. It sounded more like the 'glimmer' mentioned here. She did mention needing 'glimmers of hope', so I guess that is where the 'glimmer' name comes from.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. I've improved my handwriting as well. Journaling is improving me in so many levels.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago my daughter gave me two tiny notebooks, about 2" square. There was only room to write a few words on each page so I decided to write one nice thing each day. I sometimes take them out and see that the highlight of the day was cheesy potato pie for tea, or a phone call, or something that made me laugh. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteI bought a pocket Filofax from eBay in October which had a 2025 week on two pages in it. I decided to write down something happy or beautiful each day so that I could look back at good things. Glimmer journal is a wonderful name. I wasn’t very disciplined unfortunately, I stopped when I looked back at the previous day and I had written “ate too much”. I might have a more focused approach in 2026.
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