How Daily Morning Pages Accelerated My Growth as a Person and Content Creator
Pouring down my thoughts on the pages of a journal unlocked life-changing breakthroughs
I’m driving to the beach with my wife and our 18-month-old son. A peaceful and sunny day is ahead of us.
And I’m crying.
A wall of tiers floods my eyes. I can barely see the road.
It has nothing to do with our trip to the seaside. A memory surfaced from my childhood. I realized how it damaged my self-esteem (which is a shipwreck).
I’m sad, but it’s an achievement. That connection remained hidden for 30 years.
I was able to understand this thanks to the Morning Pages.
What are Morning Pages?
It’s a journaling technique described by Julia Cameron in her book: The artist’s way. It’s simple (yet not easy!):
every morning, write about whatever comes to mind,
don’t correct, don’t censor,
write longhand,
stop after filling 3 pages.
In 2020 I practiced it for months (I had to stop when my son started waking waaay too early). I didn’t always write 3 pages, but I committed to write for half an hour.
It made me explore current and past issues. It led me to their root causes. It helped me create unexpected connections. It resurfaced buried memories.
How can Morning Pages help you?
It’s hard to find so much time in a day, just for journaling. You need a very good reason to do it.
Morning Pages train you to silence your inner editor.
As a creator this is invaluable. That voice that suffocates your creativity. He shouts all that your ideas are stupid, even before they are fully fleshed out. He tells you should avoid the risk of failure at all costs.
Filling 3 whole pages, every day, with an uncensored stream of consciousness, is a brute force attack against your inner editor. You shove it out the window. You prime your mind to express itself freely for the rest of the day, and beyond.
Julia Cameron’s book is for creatives. I’m no artist, I am a content entrepreneur. But it brought tangible improvements in my personal development, which is the foundation of everything.
Our past chained us to heavy anchors, burying them deep. Until we dig them up and let them go, our chances of success will always be limited.
How Morning pages helped my growth
It seems impossible, but I never suffered from writer’s block while doing my Morning Pages. I mainly used them to:
analyze my current emotional state,
review recent events and my response to them,
brainstorm ideas for my business projects,
plan the day ahead (especially when I felt really overwhelmed).
I never had a plan planned. I just followed the flow of my thoughts.
Here are the 3 main benefits I received.
Unload emotional burden
The worst emotions often lose most of their power when we get them out of our heads. It happens when you tell them to a friend, but also when you drop them on the page.
Every time I woke up in a bad mood and described my feelings in my journal, I felt relieved. I forgot about them when they weren’t serious. And when there were real problems, I got closer to the solution.
These burdens stifle creativity. I’m a master at deflecting external distractions, such as everything coming from my smartphone. What still derails me are overthinking, fears, doubt. By unloading them on the page, I was free to focus and create.
Warm-up your writing muscles
Writing is a core part of my job. I create content and information products, help clients through email and chat, participate in communities.
Those 30 minutes every morning acted like warming up on the treadmill before hitting the weights in the gym.
I didn’t need to take it slow. After closing my journal, I could sit down and start creating ritght away (or write away… 😉).
Unearth the root causes
I’m analytical by nature. But often the analysis inside my head ends up in infinite loops.
In my Morning Pages, I carried out a kind of Socratic questioning. I asked why, why, why, even across several days.
In some cases, it lead me to some epiphany. Like the one I recounted in the beginning. The newly gained clarity also led to lessons I could share with my audience.
How to get the most from Morning pages
Your three daily pages are wasted if you don’t take them seriously. Here are some guidelines that helped me find gold.
Be consistent
You have to do it every single day. You can skip just a day here and there.
Repetition will make it easier. You’ll develop your “editor-figthing” muscles. And you’ll dive deeper and deeper.
Important problems never have trivial solutions. Only long and deep reflections help you really understand the situation and envision the right way out.
Be sincere
I knew no one would read my journal. But I will still felt some resistance in sharing inconvenient truths.
It was my confirmation bias screaming. I couldn’t admit I had done something wrong.
Remember: No one will read your journal.
If you feel bad about confessing something on paper, you have probably uncovered an issue worth exploring.
Notice repetition
I never read past journal entries. But I often noticed I was writing about the same feelings. Or about the same mistakes or unpleasant situations.
After a while, you’ll notice patterns—similar sequences of events leading to similar results, or thoughts going down repetitive paths.
This is an alarm bell.
Usually it means one (or more) of these:
your perception of reality is misaligned,
you lack some skills to deal with the recurring situation,
your decision making process is faulty.
When you catch yourself writing again about the same thing, start questioning yourself.
Start as small as you can
I tried dozens of self-improvement exercises and habits. Morning Pages were the most helpful.
But who has the time to write for 30 minutes (or more) every morning? I had to stop when I had to start taking care of my son before 6 AM.
But still, I recommend you try. The benefits outsize the costs.
Two ideas to make it doable:
commit to just 10 minutes,
use AI dictation, with an app like VoiceNotes, and do it while driving, cleaning, or walking.
Let me know how it went!
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I'll give it a try...but instead of daily, I'll apply weekly 😂