Journal Your Way to Mindfulness with SHAPE's New Partnership

Liz Doupnik
·2 min read
A woman using her phone
A woman using her phone

Ella uzan/Getty Images

It's always around this time of year that I set some sort of outrageous intention (this year's goal to regularly make nut milk from scratch really crashed and burned—literally). January can mean the opportunity to turn a corner and start fresh, or in my case, have about 20 panic attacks that I'm not actually taking the necessary steps to achieve my freshly minted goal. And it's not just around the new year that it's easy to become overwhelmed by doing all the things required to succeed (let alone maintain some semblance of a social life, clock eight(ish) hours of sleep, work out, and just generally be a functioning human who's not a jerk). (Related: How to Practice Mindful Meditation Anywhere)

It's with this in mind that SHAPE partnered with mindful journaling app, Jour, as part of our new programming that kicks off in January. We heard you when you raved about our 40-Day Progress Journal (P.S. Our new version touts updates exclusively garnered from our resident badass and contributing fitness director, Jen Widerstrom). We loved seeing you all share your journal pages in our Goal Crusher Facebook group. (Related: The Ultimate 40-Day Plan to Crush Any Goal, Featuring Jen Widerstrom)

But here's the thing—we're all busy AF. And sometimes, as much as we enjoy the act of writing something down, we need a tool that's already on our phone and provides a shorter timeframe to kick us off. Enter the Jour x SHAPE 15-day, guided journaling experience.

For the partnership, we pulled some of the best bits of the 40-Day Progress Journal and blended it with Jour's thoughtful and action-oriented prompts. Each day, you'll participate in a brief, immersive experience that asks you to reflect on specific topics through various audio prompts. Every session will surface a fresh opportunity to take a mini-timeout, center yourself, and focus on your goal. The best part? If you're like me and regularly change your mind/goal (hi, Libra rising!), you're in luck: You can repeat this experience at any time. Your goal is up to you—this journey is built to help you get there.

Throughout the next month and well into 2020, be sure to check in with SHAPE as we dole out expert-guided explainers about popular topics like skin care and recovery, first-person accounts from folks who have accomplished big (and small!) goals, and so.much.more. Until then, download Jour, get your new Progress Journal, and take a breath. You got this—we got you.