Background

It started when I saw my friend shared this site called Skillshare, which is an online learning platform that offers 2 months of free trial. Why not? I said. I then browsed through the class catalog and decided that I want to try to take a non-tech related class and ended up taking “Writing for Self-Discovery: 6 Journaling Prompts for Gratitude and Growth”. The class teaches you some writing prompts that you can follow that touches some aspects like joy, regrets, things that are on your mind, etc and expects you to write about that. Personally, it’s something that makes me reflect more on my life and I recommend you to try it for your self. Here’s my take on each prompts that the class presents and why I think it’s interesting.

Prompt 1: Cultivating Joy

In this exercise, you are expected to list things, no matter how small, that sparks joy in your life. The hope is that by listing the joys, you can actively notice it when it’s happening in your life. On top of that, it also encourages you to try fit in more activities and things that spark joy into your life. Personally, one of the things that I put down on my list is “seeing tall buildings”. I’m not sure why but seeing tall buildings really in a way makes me excited. Maybe it’s because it’s an example of mankind’s great accomplishment to be able to construct such a complex design. All in all, some things on my lists are no brainer while some things actually are things that I don’t often notice, a pretty interesting observation…

Tall ass buildings

Prompt 2: Work through Regrets

Thinking about regrets is tough and important. Tough, because thinking about regrets makes you in a way re-live the moment and reminding yourself about it. Important, because we must learn from our mistakes that contribute in creating that regret and try to not repeat it in the future. Honestly, this prompt took me the longest to finish because I wanted to list down things as exhaustive and complete as possible and try to internalize why things happened the way they were and what I can do about it in the future.

Prompt 3: Redefine Success

Talking about 2 kinds of success: the one that you’re taught about and the one that you define yourself. How does it differ? is there a similarity? is there a surprise?

Prompt 4: Write to Your Young Self

This prompt is to encourage you to think of a time in your past that you enjoyed and say whatever you want. I picked the time when I was still in Junior High because I was really carefree back then. I remembered that my day-to-day was basically: school -> eat at Warteg Ayu (which I just realized now has a website??)-> go to friend’s house -> go home. I don’t have “targets” or “goals” and was truly carefree. It also reminds of the changes happening throughout my life, the mistakes I made along the way, the highs, the lows, and how it shapes me moving forward.

Prompt 5: Write from a Quote

Finding a quote and think about what about it that makes you like it. Honestly, I cheated on this since I can’t think of a good quote on top of my head so instead, I picked the last scene from the movie La La Land because of its depiction of dreams and sacrifices.

Final Staring Scene

Prompt 6: Brain Dump

To think through one thing that’s on top of your mind and write anything that’s associated with it. I picked “Job after college” since I’m (hopefully) months away from graduation and still have no clue on what I will be doing next.

Conclusion

Through this class, I noticed how journaling, even through boilerplate prompts, helped me reflect on my life and made it crystal clear if I want to refer back to it. Will I do this often? most likely not, but I might revisit this early next year to see what changes in my life.