Journal prompts for self growth are the perfect solution for anyone who
- Has a hard time keeping up with their good habits
- Wants to make a change in their life now
They’re simple, free, and easy to use!
You don’t need a lot of materials for them and they can be used at your own pace on your own schedule.
What better thing to ask for on your personal development journey?
If this is you and you’re ready to make a real change in your life (for real this time), then follow along with me on the best journal prompts for self growth.
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Journal Prompts For Self Growth
- What do I want my self-growth to look like in 2 years? Describe in detail.
- What is one thing you can take off your plate to make more time for personal development?
- What are 3 things you set out to accomplish in this next year?
- What are 3 small daily steps I can take to reach my goal?
- What are the 2 areas I need to work on the most with my self growth?
- What have I done to someone else that I would never want done to me? What was I operating out of when I did it and how could I have changed the outcome?
- In what areas am I lacking the most? (financially, emotionally, physically, relationships, spiritually) Which area do I want to make a change in first and why?
- What are the 3 most important things to me in life?
- How well do I keep my priorities in check on a scale from 1-10 (1 being the worst 10 being the best)? What is one small thing I can do to improve this?
- What are 2 things I need to make more time for?
- What are 2 things I need to let go of?
- What is something I can do once a week to get me closer to my goals?
- What is one thing you’re proud of yourself for this year?
- What is one thing that instantly calms you down?
- What is my biggest stressor right now?
- Who do you want to be in the next 5 years?
- Who do you want to be in the next 10 years?
- What is your biggest regret from the past few years? What are two things you can learn from it?
- Which daily habits add to my overall well-being? Which daily habits do not add to my overall well-being?
- What is one new boundary I need in place to honor my personal development?
- What is one goal you’ve had that you have not achieved yet and why?
- What is one reminder/bible verse/quote you can remind yourself of during tough or tempting times?
- What is one thing I want to accomplish this month?
- What is one book that can help me with my personal development?
- What is one thing you want to add to your daily routine? How do you plan to be consistent with it?
Journal Prompts For Spiritual Growth
- What are 2 goals I have for my spiritual goal growth this time next year?
- What does having spiritual growth look like for me?
- What is one daily thing I can do to get closer/stay close to God?
- What is one way that I can better connect with my intuition?
- What are 3 goals I have for my spiritual goals in the next 12 months?
- What is one way that I can respond differently when I’m upset?
- What are my top 5 core values? In what ways do I practice them? In what ways can I practice them better?
- What is something I may be forcing in my life right now? How can I be more go with the flow?
- How much time do I genuinely make time for spiritual growth? How can I realistically make more time for spiritual growth?
- What brings meaning to your life?
- How much time am I making for the meaningful stuff in my life in comparison to the unmeaningful stuff (80/20, 60/40, 30/70)?
- What is one small thing I can do to make time for the things that give my life purpose?
- What does being spiritual mean to you?
- Do you consider yourself to be close to God? Why or why not?
- What is one way that I can grow closer to God? How can I start to realistically implement that in my schedule?
- How has your relationship with God changed over the years? What has caused those changes?
- What is one small thing I can do today to help someone else?
- What is one prayer that helps me feel calm and at peace?
- What does having faith mean to you? Do you feel as though you have high faith? Why or why not?
- What is one way you want to change your attitude toward life?
- What gives you a sense of closeness with God? How can you make more time for it in your weekly routine?
- What scripture speaks out the most to you?
- Who is someone you need to forgive in your life? What is one small thing you can do to start/continue that process?
- What is something you want to surrender to God?
- What do you believe to be God’s nature? How does this impact your attitude and behavior?
Journal Prompts For Emotional Growth
- What does having emotional growth mean to you?
- What is one habit or reaction you want to let go of in order to improve your emotional well-being?
- How important is your emotional health to you on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not at all and 10 being very important)? Do your daily habits align with how important you say your emotional health is to you?
- What is one thing you can do to better prioritize your emotional well-being?
- How do you typically start your day? How does that contribute to your emotional well-being?
- What is something you want more of in life?
- What are 3 specific goals you have for yourself with your emotional growth?
- Is your self-talk more positive or negative?
- Are you more critical and judgemental with yourself or are you more compassionate and patient with yourself?
- What is one small way you can be less hard on yourself?
- What are 2 ways you can better cope with negative emotions?
- What is one scenario you’ve shown emotional growth this year?
- What are 3 triggers for you?
- When do you find yourself reverting back to your old emotional habits the most?
- Who is someone that causes more emotional stress in your life than others? What is one boundary you can place between you and that person?
- Who do you consider to be in your support system?
- What is a situation that brings you stress/anxiety? Describe ways you can handle them more positively.
- What is one self-care activity you want to make more time for? What is one thing you can take off your plate to make more time for it?
- What are my most self-destructive habits? For each one you listed, write one positive coping strategy to handle it in a better way.
- What are 5 things that bring you joy?
How Often Should You Use Journal Prompts For Self Growth?
You want to aim for consistency with your journal prompts for self growth, so I recommend doing 2-3 prompts a day (max) or 2-3 prompts a week.
I personally recommend doing writing prompts weekly and affirmations daily, but it ultimately comes down to what works for you.
That is what works for me.
I also recommend keeping it simple. Don’t pick 15 journal prompts off this list and do them all at once because it can water down the message.
Stick with 2-3 journal prompts to start.
If you have 15 that really speak out to you, then write them down, and cycle through them weekly until you’re done (choose 2-3 for one week/day, then 2-3 for the next week/day, then another 2-3 prompts for the week/day, so on and so forth)
Main Takeaway: Be consistent and don’t do a bunch all at once.

How Can Journal Prompts For Self Growth Help You?
1. Easier To Be Consistent With
One way that journal prompts for self growth can be helpful is by giving you something small to be consistent with.
For those of us who can relate to having a hard time with being consistent, you know how important this can be.
The scenario goes like this:
- You see someone or something that reminds you you can be a lot further than where you are right now
- You come up with some plan on how to close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be
- You start said plan
- You keep up with said plan for about 1 week (if that)
And that’s it. That beautiful wonderful plan has now circled down the drain.
I’m not quite sure why, but it’s like that sometimes. And you are not alone in this. I have also struggled with (and still struggle with sometimes) this.
That’s why journal prompts for self improvement can be so helpful because they’re a small thought-provoking thing to keep up with, which will help you remain more consistent with it.

2. Offers You Another Perspective
Journal prompts for self growth can also offer you another perspective on things such as
- A personal issue you’re dealing with
- Annoying people at work/home
- A dispute in a relationship
- How you’re approaching life
This can be very helpful on your personal development journey because self growth is all about evolving: evolving how you think, respond, and react.
So you need that person or thing that can remind you there are other ways of looking at stuff, and journal prompts for personal growth can be that for you.
And the best thing about journal prompts (instead of it being a person) is that it doesn’t yell, judge, or rush you. They’re there when you need them, as you need them.

3. Serves As A Reminder
Journal prompts for self growth can serve as a reminder, especially on the tougher days.
Sometimes your prompts will be a “come to Jesus” moment, and other times they can be a reminder that some things aren’t really that big of a deal.
They can also be helpful in scenarios where you keep coming across the same situation (aka when you haven’t learned a lesson that the Universe or God wants you to learn, so you keep being met with the same thing).
For example, before I learned how to be more patient on the road, I kept coming across people who would literally pull out in front of me and go 10 miles under the speed limit.
And eventually, heavy on eventually, I learned how to calm myself down and it was primarily through journaling.
Because journaling:
- Gets your thoughts out of your head and
- Opens your horizon
Does it always work? No.
Did I still have moments where I was cursing out the person in front of me even after reminding myself what I journaled about? Maybe.
But did they help more than if I didn’t do my journal prompts at all? Absolutely.
4. Gives You An Opportunity For A Small Win
Another plus to using journal prompts for self growth is that it gives you more opportunities to have small wins.
Your small wins could be
- Journaling for the day
- Having an opportunity to practice what you journaled about and actually do it that time
- Being more patient with others
- Not responding how you would have responded just 6 months ago
These small wins add up tremendously over time, and as little as just a few months go by, you’ll look back and realize you’ve blossomed into this new person without even realizing it.
Helpful Tips On Your Self Growth Journey
Now that we’ve discussed the best journal prompts for self growth and how they can help you, I want to offer you some personal development tips that helped me (and I know will help you too).

1. Think Of It As Putting Pennies In A Jar
One of the greatest things I learned, while I was reading a ton of personal development books, is to look at it as small actions compounding over time rather than doing a bunch of big actions randomly.
I believe it was The Slight Edge I learned this from.
You don’t need to completely change who you are on your self growth journey, just focus on small ways you can do better, and be consistent with it.
Pro Tip: If you do something for 10 minutes a day that compounds to roughly 61 hours in a year. That’s way more than 0 hours in a year from just talking about it and never doing any action.
2. Be Patient With Yourself
This is not a race, and you are not a robot.
You are going to make mistakes, revert back to your old ways, get frustrated, and become tired of the work it takes to change your habits.
You just will because you’ve been so accustomed to moving one way for 20,30,40+ years and now all of a sudden you are switching it up (for the better).
It’s going to take time and practice, so in the meantime be patient with yourself. And be okay with making mistakes.
Mistakes are good because it’s an opportunity to see how you can improve firsthand.
3. Accept Who You Are As You Are
You may not be the person you aspire to be, yet, but that doesn’t mean you should beat down on the person you are today either.
You are enough right now to make your goals or dreams come to fruition.
Accept who you are/what you’ve been doing, how you want to improve it, and how you can create small steps to make it happen.
Keep moving forward.
4. Use Affirmations (Very Important)
Using affirmations can be very helpful and encouraging if you’re trying to create a change in your life.
Affirmations are (preferably positive) statements that are stating something as a fact or true.
The word “affirm” means to assert something as valid/state something positively, so affirmations are you stating positive things about yourself out loud, which can be very helpful if you want to change your habits.
Affirmations don’t have to be extra at all. It takes maybe 10 seconds to say 2 short phrases and that’s it. You can say them wherever and whenever.
Here are some awesome affirmations to start with:
120+ Self-Care Affirmations For A Busy Schedule
91 Self-Discipline Affirmations To Get Motivated Today!
Bible Affirmations For Success And Prosperity
5. Focus On What You’re Grateful For
Another helpful thing to do while you’re trying to work on yourself and your habits is to focus on what you’re grateful for today.
This can really uplift your mood and even start to make you look at things differently.
There are always at least 3 things to be grateful for, especially if you’re reading this right now because you
- Have access to wifi
- Are able to read
- Have a device to read it on
- Have functioning eyes to see
If you didn’t have one of those things you would look at things differently, so be grateful for them right now.
When the power went out for days in my area (and almost the whole southeast) from Hurricane Helene, it made me look at the wifi, power, and honestly so many other things very differently.
I’m so grateful to be able to have power and a hot shower. What are you grateful for today?

6. Turn To God
When you’re focusing on self growth, focusing on building a relationship with God goes hand in hand.
Everyone has a different take on how to have a relationship with God, so I don’t think what’s important is how you have your relationship with God.
I think what’s most important is getting to know God, for yourself, praying, and doing your best to do what God calls all of us to do which is to do unto others as you would have them done unto you and love one another.
I also think it’s important to build a relationship with God, for yourself, not what other people call you to do.
It’s good to listen to several opinions, see which one resonates the most with you, and go from there.
If they start to sound kind of different or they aren’t aligning with your morals anymore then find someone else.
I personally love listening to Joyce Meyer in the mornings and sometimes at night. She resonates the most with me and I enjoy listening to her messages.
If you’re not religious you do not have to do this, but it’s worth mentioning.

7. Don’t Force It
Self growth doesn’t mean never feeling anything bad.
So don’t try to force yourself to feel happy all the time, be on go 24/7, or romanticize every part of your life because that’s not what self-growth is about.
Self-growth is “developing new skills, attitudes, actions, or reactions that can have a positive impact on your life” according to Berkeley Well-being.
It doesn’t mean being perfect, never messing up, or that you know everything and you’re done learning.
No one is ever done learning, and no one is immune to feeling anxious, sad, or down. No one.
But as you continue to improve whatever it is you’re trying to improve (your skillset, mindset, reactions, or actions) when you come across those times that cause you to feel anxious or down they won’t hit the same because you yourself have changed.
Especially when you choose to improve your mindset, reaction, and attitude. You will come across things that once bothered you and now you’re like “Yeah it’s whatever”.
8. Give Yourself A Pat On The Back
The last tip for personal development is to give yourself a pat every once in a while. Like for real, give yourself a pat on the back right now.
See, doesn’t it feel nice?
You deserve recognition and reassurance, and giving yourself a pat on the back is the perfect way to do it. It’s free, easy, quick, and still feels great!
Conclusion On Journal Prompts For Self Growth
Self growth does not have to be this overly difficult process that you can never keep up with.
Quite the contrary.
Personal development is something you take one day at a time, and you do your best with what you’ve got that day.
That’s why using journal prompts for self growth can be so beneficial because it’s a low barrier to entry, and it doesn’t require much to start.
Try to only stick with using 2-3 journal prompts a day because anything over that may lead to you feeling burnt out or like it’s a chore. If you want to use your journal prompts weekly instead of daily, that works too!
As long as you’re being consistent, that’s all that matters.
Comment down below which journal prompt was your favorite, and I will see you in the next article!
Peace
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