A journal is the one place you don’t have to perform. Write like nobody’s grading it, because nobody is.

Almost everything you write gets written for an audience, even a small one, and the audience edits you before you notice. A page nobody will read is the rare place where you can be unimpressive, contradictory and unfinished. That is exactly what makes it useful, because the thoughts you would not say out loud are usually the ones worth finding.

Try writing badly on purpose for a week. No structure, no good sentences, just whatever is actually in your head. Read it back at the end and notice what kept showing up.