Last Updated on August 15, 2023 by Angela Vaz
After going through a devastating breakup and losing my mom to cancer in a span of 1 month, I knew I needed to take some time off to heal and feel like myself again.
If I had to pick 1 thing that helped me tremendously, it would be journaling. I journaled every day without fail.
And now, 3 months later, I am finally in a place where I am happy and content with my life.
In this post, I want to cover all the self-love journal prompts I used to help me heal and fall in love with myself.
Let’s begin!
But before that really quick, get my free guide on how to really reset your life.
This post contains affiliate links, meaning I may make a commission at no extra cost to you if you decide to click on a link and purchase something. Click here to read the full disclaimer.
Before I move on to the self-love journal prompts, I want to cover a few basics first.
What is self-love?
Self-love means placing your happiness and well-being at a high priority. Self-love involves taking care of your own needs and not settling for something that is not worth your time or energy.
Self-love means believing that you are enough. And you matter.
Self-love means accepting who you are right now and knowing that there is work to be done but being patient and treating yourself with the kindness and love that you deserve.
Self-love means falling in love with your life and knowing that your life is important to you.
Please remember that I’m not saying you lack anything. You are perfect the way you are.
We’ve built cocoons of unworthiness, ego, and low self-esteem over the years through conditioning and societal demands that we now need to carve away so that we can rediscover that perfect, beautiful self that is buried deep within us.
And the only way to do that is to practice self-love.
Self-love varies for every single person.
So you have to find what activities speak to you and help you discover the love you have within you and do more of those.
How can I practice self-love?
There are tons of self-care ideas on the internet that you can start implementing to fall in love with yourself. And once you start doing these every day, you will become more calm, happy, and peaceful.
But the key to getting results is to be consistent.
One of the best ways to practice self-love is, to be honest with yourself. And the activities that help you with this are:
- Meditation to help clear the mind and gain more clarity
- Journaling to help ease anxiety
- Eating mindfully to help you become more fit and feel better mentally
- Doing work that makes you happy
I started doing all of these activities, and they seriously helped me become a much better version of myself.
How does journaling help with self-love?
Journaling helps you become more self-aware.
Journaling will help you identify your thoughts and actions. And you’ll be able to understand what is working for you and what you need to abandon.
When I flip through my journal, I can see how harsh I was with myself in the past. I can see how many expectations I held and how unfair I was being with myself.
Journaling will help you introspect and see where you fall short.
No matter where you are in your journey of self-love and even if you can’t think of 1 good thing about yourself, journaling will fix that. It will help you see what beauty you have within.
Here’s what you can expect from journaling every day:
- Your mind will feel more clear because you’re penning down your thoughts
- You will feel heard. Your journal doesn’t judge you. It’s a safe space to release all your thoughts and fears.
- You will begin to identify your strengths and weaknesses so that you can work more on yourself.
- You will fall in love with life again.
However, you need to develop a good and regular journaling habit in order to see the results.
How can I journal about self-love?
The idea behind journaling about self love is to not keep any barriers between yourself and your journal.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being real.
You have to be very honest and extremely committed to journaling in order to see results and make that change.
Journaling alone cannot help you with this process of self-love but it does contribute to a large extent.
I am going to cover all the journal prompts that I used to help me discover what was holding me back from being my true self and what I needed to work on to become a better version of myself.
Please get a really simple notebook that you don’t have to fear ruining or tarnishing. The simpler the better. I like Unruled Moleskines like these.
Self-Love Journal Prompts
Some of these self-love journal prompts will take a while to pen down. You can choose to answer these questions in any order and you can also skip prompts.
It’s totally up to you. There are no rules to follow except to be completely honest with yourself.
I’ve divided the questions into sections so you can go through 1 section at a time or mix them up.
Self-love journal prompts to identify the source of the pain:
1. Close your eyes and think about every moment that has made you happy from birth. Write down as many as you can.
It can be anything – the first time you laid eyes on your favorite toy. Or when you watched a really good cartoon. Or when you learned to play an instrument for the first time.
Take your time with this list.
The reason I’m asking you to do this is that I want you to realize that your happiness comes from within. It’s not dependent on things or people. Your joy is within you.
2. What is something you struggle to love about yourself? Why is that so?
Take some time to understand why you’re being so hard on yourself. And the historical factor is contributing to this line of thinking.
3. When have you felt the most pain recently? And what do you feel contributed to that pain?
This question will help you understand where your weakness lies.
4. Think of the worst thing that has happened to you. If your friend went through something similar today, what would you tell that friend? How would you make them feel better?
After you’ve answered this question, see if you can apply any of that advice to yourself.
5. When you are sad or lonely, what activity do you usually do? Do you acknowledge your loneliness or do you try to numb it with food/gaming/alcohol/etc.?
This question is to help you understand if you are constantly running from yourself and avoiding a certain feeling. Loneliness only comes to those who are not comfortable being alone with themselves.
You may also like: How I combated loneliness and learned to be happy by myself
6. What is your biggest fear? And why do you feel this way?
This question is to help you understand what you fear and get to the root of this fear so you can overcome it.
7. What activities do you do that drains you mentally and emotionally?
We often do things we don’t even realize are draining us. And we repeat those activities just because everyone else is doing it or we believe it’s good for us.
8. What can you do to replace those activities? Or get rid of them altogether?
This question will help you understand what you can replace those draining activities with. For instance, if watching TV makes you feel lethargic or dulls your inspiration, you could do something else like start a new hobby that you’ve always wanted to try.
9. What are the biggest flaws that you’ve identified you have? And how can you truly forgive yourself and love yourself for them?
Just because you know that you have a flaw, doesn’t mean you need to hate yourself for it. You can accept who you are and start working towards correcting that flaw with kindness and grace.
10. What thought patterns do you not like? What are the thoughts that play in your head that make you feel really bad about yourself?
Once you identify these thoughts and know that they don’t have any power over you, you become more self-aware when they play and eventually they stop playing in your head altogether.
11. What is the last challenging moment you’ve had? How did you grow from it?
There is no such thing as “bad things” happening to people. Every obstacle is an opportunity for growth. Everything you deem as an obstacle is a life lesson. So, never ever regret any adversity that happened to you. It has made you who you are.
You may also like: How to trust the process and stop controlling everything
12. What is something you need to let go of?
It can be a memory, a thing, a person, anything. Read this post to understand how you can truly let go.
13. Are there things that I constantly find myself comparing to others? Why have I placed importance on this thing and why am I being so harsh with myself?
This particular question helped me tremendously. For years, I criticized myself internally for not finding love and having children. Yes, it was something that I always wanted. But I constantly looked at other couples and felt that twinge that something was missing.
It took me a few months of self-healing to realize that I am complete and don’t need a partner to feel happy or loved. Once I came to this realization, I felt inner peace and contentment.
14. Why do you struggle to show yourself self-love? How can you work towards self-love?
Once we understand why we struggle with self-love, we can start making a change.
15. What people/things make you really unhappy? How can you move away from them?
List down anything that truly makes you unhappy. What can do you to stop associating with these things/people and move away from them?
16. When do you usually find yourself procrastinating? Why do you feel you procrastinate?
Procrastination is often a distraction from feeling fear. The fear could be anything – fear of perfection, imposter syndrome, etc. This question will help you realize any limiting beliefs you have and overcome them.
Self love journal prompts to help you realize what makes you happy
1. If you didn’t have to earn money because you were financially secure, what would you be spending your time doing? How would you spend your life?
This question will help you realize what you truly love and what do you really aspire to become.
2. Write a list of things you are incredibly grateful for.
It needn’t be big. Even if it’s a cup of coffee in the morning or a tree that you love waking up to by your window, it’s just as important.
There is so much to be grateful for. But we often focus our attention on things that go wrong or things that don’t work out. It’s just the way we are built. And practicing gratitude will help you change your outlook towards life.
3. What are the qualities you love about yourself?
It is time to understand what makes you special and start loving yourself for who you really are.
4. What activities really make you happy?
It could be anything you like. It doesn’t have to please anyone or have to make you money.
5. Who inspires you? Why does this person inspire you? What is it about them that makes you aspire to be like them?
Ask yourself if it’s their personality or a skill you appreciate about the person. List down steps that you can take to achieve that.
6. What is something that you’ve always wanted? Is it something you genuinely feel will make you happy?
Happiness is something that is within you. You don’t need anything or anyone to be happy. You can aspire to have goals, but you don’t require the outcome to find happiness, remember that.
7. What are your biggest goals? Do your goals align with your values?
It’s okay to have goals. But those goals should align with your values and beliefs. Only then can you really work toward achieving them.
8. What are a few things that arise curiosity within you? Which things make you feel life is worth it? What are the things you get lost in, completely?
Identify the times when you’ve lost track of time because the thing you were involved in was so beautiful and mesmerizing. It could be something you enjoy doing like listening to music or watching a video about anatomy, or learning new things.
Take some time to identify what makes your heart sing.
9. Do I feel that people take me for granted? How can I draw boundaries to ensure that I am happy?
A lot of us end up being people pleasers and this can often ruin our happiness or just leave us feeling miserable. Ask yourself how you can draw boundaries. Remember, the key to being happy is to stop thinking about what other people think of you.
10. Is there any habit that you’ve always wanted to inculcate but never have? Write it down and write down how you can make time for it.
Playing the piano is something I’ve always wanted to learn. And now at 28 years old, I’ve finally picked up a keyboard and I’m practicing daily. It makes me so happy.
You may also like: How to say no without feeling crappy
Self-love journal prompts to help you become more loving to yourself
1. How can you love yourself more right now?
What are some activities that you can do to help you spend more time with yourself and give you more joy?
2. If you could talk to yourself 10 years ago, what would you tell her/him?
You can’t reveal what has happened but you can certainly give them the advice to help them cope with whatever will happen.
3. What are a few things you’d like to hear from someone else?
Once you write your list, read this list to yourself. Remember, nobody can love you as you should love yourself. If you do not love yourself, no one else really can.
You are worthy and you should be enough for you.
5. Am I taking care of my body? How can I take better care of it?
Do you feel physically fit and happy? If not, what can you do to improve? Remember, you are perfect the way you are. Any improvement you make should be for yourself alone. Not for others.
For instance, I’d been eating a lot of junk food, and I’d feel sleepy towards the afternoons. This also contributed to inflammatory acne which was really painful. I also knew I needed to cut down on sugar because Diabetes Type 2 runs in my family. So I started making multiple changes to my diet because I want to live a healthy and happy life.
6. Am I nourishing my mind? How can I improve my mind or improve my mind daily?
I absolutely love learning new things and reading. I started making time to read, learn French and play the piano every day and I feel so much sharper and happier.
Your mind is your greatest asset. Treasure it.
7. How do I feel emotionally? What can I do to become emotionally stronger?
I found a great post on how to grade your emotional self. Once you know where you stand, make a list of things you can do to become emotionally stronger.
8. How can you make more time for yourself and the things you love?
Often, we find ourselves making excuses that we don’t have time for self-love. But don’t we make time to brush our teeth, eat food and bathe? Self-love is just as important. So, try to carve out some time for yourself each day.
9. Write down 10-15 self-love affirmations that you can repeat to yourself every day?
I wrote mine on a piece of paper that I read to myself every day. Here is a nice post on self-love affirmations to give you some ideas!
You may also like: 25 personal goal examples that will help you become a better version of yourself
10. What is something that you’ve done in the past that you are genuinely proud of?
Try to identify the thinking behind what you did and why you did that. And ask yourself if you still are the same person.
11. What is self-love to you? How can you show yourself some self-love?
The definition is different for everyone. Identify what self-love means to you and how you can achieve more self-love by doing things that make you happy.
12. Who are the people you truly love in your life and you’d do anything for? Why? Do they love you the same way?
Make a list of people you love to the moon and back. And ask yourself if they’d do the same for you. Keep these people close. You are blessed to have them in your life.
13. What did you love to do as a child or growing up? Are you still pursuing that? If not, write down how you can.
I have been drawing since I was three years old. In between, I gave up drawing because life consumed me and I’d often find myself drawn to pen sketches or just doodling.
I realized that the more I drew, the happier I was. And now my entire online business revolves around it. And yes, it makes me happy.
14. What does your ideal life look like? Write it down.
There is nothing stopping you from living the life you want to live. You are already there. Just believe in yourself and start working toward your goals. Live your best life right now.
15. When do you feel most confident?
There are days/times when we feel less confident or just don’t feel like biting the bullet. Once you understand what makes you confident, it’s all a matter of applying that mindset in everything we do.
16. What are your strongest beliefs and values?
No matter what you do, you should never go against your beliefs or values. For instance, if you dislike dishonesty, you should never have to sacrifice your value or be with people who are constantly dishonest with you. It may be time to let those people go.
17. Do you love who you are? Do you feel you deserve to be happy?
If your answer is anything but a definite and resounding yes, it means you do have some work to do in the self-love department. And it’s totally okay. Self-love is a journey.
And that brings us to the end of these self-love journal prompts.
Once you complete these, you can create more questions, or you can just note down your feelings and your emotions in your journal daily.
Flip through it from time to time to see how far you’ve come.
Some of the best self-love journals you can buy:
Now if you want to buy something that’s already readymade and contains exercises to help you with your self-love journey, then I highly recommend the following journals:
1. Self Love Workbook for Women by Megan Logan
The Self-Love Workbook for Women empowers women to focus on their own emotional health and make positive changes by nurturing self-compassion. By building better relationships with themselves, women can develop the confidence they need to take on the world.
It includes prompts, quizzes, and creative activities designed by therapist Megan Logan to make it fun to build self-care habits. Check it out here.
2. Self Discovery Journal – Kelly Vincent
Any journey of self-discovery takes courage and vulnerability to begin. Inside this beautifully illustrated self-discovery journal, you’ll find thought-provoking writing prompts and creative exercises, you’ll gain meaningful introspection as you explore your identity and emotions; examine your relationships; define your values, passions, and dreams; and embrace your life’s purpose. Check it out here.
3. Self Love Journal – Leslie Marchland
The Self Love Journal includes:
- Proven methods―Grow with journaling exercises based on positive psychology, mindfulness, and other effective methodologies.
- Personal space―The simple layout includes blank lines, so you can write directly on the pages; and inspiring quotes add a little boost of courage.
- Chart a course―Follow the journal from beginning to end, or pick your favorite practices to do on a daily basis.
I hope this post helped you understand how you can move forward with your self-love journey. Use the self-love journal prompts every day for a month to see the difference.
If you want to see more content related to self-love, please leave a comment below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you may also enjoy reading these:
