7 Self Discovery Journal Prompts to Add to Your Morning Routine

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How self discovery journal prompts support you

There are so many excellent benefits to journaling, as we’ve all heard probably countless times. The ones I care about most as a mindset coach are stress and anxiety reduction, inspiration and memory improvement. But free-writing can feel a bit intimidating, especially when you’re new to the practice. So, it can be helpful to take advantage of self discovery journal prompts to jumpstart your brain.

I incorporate journaling into my morning routine after lots of experimentation with what would work well in my own life. So I pulled together these self discovery journal prompts to incorporate into your own routine if you’d like!

Cultivating the ideal morning routine

A word on ideal morning routines: this will be different for everyone. A lot of social media lifestyle propaganda will push this one-size-fits-all vision of waking up and doing all the things before the day even gets started. Perfect skincare and hygiene regimen, yoga, meditation, cardio, healthy Instagrammable breakfast, thoughtful discourse with partner on current events, gratitude journal, and so on.

But real life doesn’t always look like that – it can be kind of a mess. Not only is it not realistic to check all these boxes every day, you might not actually like all of those things. 

An example: For an entire month I tried to become a person who drinks tea in the mornings. I know it’s good for me and I was slightly embarrassed about how much money I spent at Starbucks on iced coffee year round. But here’s the thing…I barely like tea. I only like a very small subset of the available teas (that I’ve tried so far). My husband bought me a sampler pack of 60 different teas to try and after a valiant week or two of a new tea each day, I finally had to just admit that it felt like torture. I just like what I like, and it turns out that’s pretty much just one kind of tea. Luckily, my husband loves all sorts of tea and he is working his way through the rest of the sampler pack. I know you all were worried 🙂

While I do have a morning routine that works really well for me now, it’s important to experiment. Figure out what’s best for you (hence the self discovery journal prompts I’m sharing)!

For me, it goes like this:

1. Wake up and take care of skin and general upkeep

While some elements of skin appearance is hereditary, I’m also a big advocate of taking really good care of my skin. So in the morning that includes hyaluronic acid, vitamin c serum, SPF moisturizer (I’m about to try this one and will report back, and have used and liked this one too) and eye cream.

2. Have tea or coffee and write in my journal (with or without self discovery journal prompts)

I will generally free write now that it’s such an ingrained habit and I no longer suffer from the awkwardness of not knowing what to write! I pulled together the self discovery journal prompts for this post based on conversations with clients. These impactful questions will give you some writing inspiration and get you thinking about your life from a new perspective. 

My beloved tea is this hibiscus superflower tea with blueberry in my favorite insulated mug (I have it in sandstone pink). It keeps the tea hot for a crazy long time while I’m working my way through my morning. Sometimes I’d rather have fancy coffee without going to Starbucks (again, the financial shame). So I recently discovered THE BEST nitro cold brew at-home format, and that’s an extremely exciting development in my life right now. I know what you’re all thinking – does the favorite mug keep the cold brew cold? And yes, yes it does. For journaling, I use a classic Moleskine journal most of the time as well.

3. Movement and meditation

I feel best when I do some movement in the mornings before hunching over the computer for the rest of the day. And I have tempted fate enough times to know that I will not exercise at night, so it’s mornings or never! What I do day-to-day varies a ton, but lately I’ve been into daily yoga (linked my mat) and walking followed by meditation (cushion linked). I always journal before I meditate. Why? Otherwise I have a really tough time getting into my quiet mental space. My brain just keeps repeating its to-do list and assorted made-up concerns, as brains are wont to do.

Seven self discovery journal prompts to jumpstart your brain

So whether you’re wanting to uplevel your existing routine or are starting to experiment with putting a plan in place from ground zero, I’ve got you! These self discovery journal prompts will help you get started when you’re not sure what to write. Don’t let the blank piece of paper scare you – try out these prompts instead:

1. If it wasn’t too late, I would…
2. If I could live anywhere it would be ________ because…
3. If I could give 7-year-old me anything, it would be ________ because… (you can also repeat this for 14 and 21-year-old you)
4. If I knew I could figure it out I would…
5. If a child asked me what matters most I’d say ________ because…
6. I knew I was being intuitively led that time that I…
7. If I’m honest with myself what really drains me is…

For fun, here have been some of my own past answers to these self discovery journal prompts:

1. Hip-hop dance classes (I signed up)
2. Where I live now 😉 because I live on a lake and have relatively easy access to mountains, the ocean, the city, and my family
3. Horseback riding lessons because I was freakishly obsessed with horses (I know all 7-year-old girls love horses but I assure you I was on *another level*) 
4. Build and maintain my own website (can, and did, and do today)
5. Recognizing your intuitive signals because they will always help you find your way
6. Took a sabbatical from my corporate job
7. Creating social media content (Have you noticed how boring our Umoya Institute social channels are? I don’t really put any energy into it. And the world hasn’t ended…yet)

Try these self discovery journal prompts without a perfectionist lens

Here are the two things to keep in mind with all of this – honesty and flexibility. Be honest about what you like, and be flexible in how you engage with it. By all means, use the self discovery journal prompts as part of your daily routine. And if you miss a day, let it go. If you only have five minutes to meditate, meditate for five minutes instead of abandoning it altogether because you can’t do it for thirty. Too tired to run for an hour? Try walking for 20 minutes while you listen to a podcast. And take your tea with you while you walk. No one does this perfectly, not even on Instagram. So be nice to yourself and be honest about what actually feels good for you, and let the rest work itself out!