The simple practice of noticing what delights you.
It was early morning. My mother and I were still in our pajamas on the porch, both of us with something hot in our hands, neither of us talking very much yet. A hummingbird came to the feeder. And then a second one. They hovered and darted and were gone in under a minute.
My mother said, “Did you see that?”
I did. I saw it.
That was joy. Small, quick, unremarkable to anyone who wasn’t there. The kind of thing that slips past you in daily life when you are moving too fast or staring at your phone. The kind of thing that, last time I checked, social media is remarkably good at stealing from us.
I have been thinking about joy a lot lately: what it actually is, where it lives in our daily routine, and why so many of us walk right past the little joys and small things without stopping. Joy journaling is one of the most powerful tools I have found for changing that. And it is simpler than you think.
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Joy Journaling Is Not the Same as Gratitude Journaling
Gratitude journaling has been everywhere for years, and I believe in it. I have a gratitude practice of my own, and the benefits of journaling for our emotional wellbeing and mental health are well documented. The research alone is compelling. Writing down positive moments releases feel-good chemicals. Do it regularly and your brain actually starts rewiring itself toward a more positive mindset.
But joy journaling is something a little different from an attitude of gratitude, and I think the distinction matters.
Gratitude looks backward. It counts the blessings. It acknowledges what you have been given.
Joy looks around. Right now. At what is here.
Gratitude is “thank you for this life.” Joy is “look at this moment.” A daily joy journal trains you to notice the good things in the present, not just to re-frame negative thoughts, but to catch positive experiences before they slip away entirely.
And here is what I love about joyful journaling as a practice: it does not ask you to pretend that negative things do not exist or that aspects of your life are not sometimes hard. It simply asks you to also notice what is good. To pay attention. To be appreciating joy on a regular basis, even in ordinary moments.
That is a great way to live. It is also, it turns out, a great way to boost happiness and support your physical health. There is real research on the connection between positive habits and wellbeing. The benefits of positive journaling are not small.
The Happiness File: Joy Journaling’s Older Cousin
I first read about something like this back in the late nineties, last century if you can believe it. It was called a happiness file. The idea was simple: you collected things that made you happy: magazine articles, photographs, quotes, small clippings, anything that sparked something in you, and kept them in a folder. It was a joyful quest of sorts, a different style of noticing. On a hard day, you opened it.
You were not journaling, exactly. There was no blank page staring at you, no daunting task of finding the right words. You were just curating joy. Saving proof that it existed.
Joy journaling is the same instinct with a pen in your hand. Instead of clipping and saving, you write it down. A journal entry does not have to be more than a line or two. “The hummingbird. The porch. My mother in her pajamas.” That is a complete entry.
The practice of writing it down does something the happiness file could not quite do: it slows you down enough to feel it twice. Once in the moment, and once on the page.
What Joy Actually Looks Like in Daily Life
In daily life, joy is smaller than we think it should be. It lives in the good bits of a day that you almost did not notice.
It is the first sip of morning chocolate from your favorite mug.
It is the hummingbird. A fawn sleeping in the garden. The fuzzy baby birds you have been watching from the kitchen window for two weeks.
It is driving with no phone, just the road and your own thoughts. Walking without earbuds and hearing what the neighborhood actually sounds like on a Sunday afternoon in July.
It is a quote that stops you. A flower blooming in your garden that wasn’t there yesterday. The way light comes through the back windows at a certain hour.
These are small things. Amazing things. They are happening all around you in daily life, all the time. And one of the most surprising aspects of your life, once you start joyful journaling, is how many of these moments you were walking past without seeing.
What Joy Journaling Looks Like, And What It Isn’t
Joy journaling is simple. You write down what delighted you today. That is the whole practice.
Not what you accomplished. Not what you are grateful for in a formal sense. Not a structured approach with weekly reflection pages and guided prompts and a joy meter at the top of the page. (Those exist, and a new journal designed around daily joy is a wonderful thing, but they are not required to begin.)
This is the easiest, simplest way to start: one line. Maybe two. “Morning chocolate on the porch. Patches napping in a square of sun. A cardinal at the feeder.” That is a complete journal session.
You do not need a dedicated journal. A small notebook in your purse works perfectly. So does one sitting on the kitchen counter, available any time a good thing happens in daily life. Pen and paper, not a phone. There is something about slowing your hand down that matters.
You do not need a full hour. You do not need the best time of day or a rigid daily routine built around it. You need two minutes and the willingness to notice.
And here is one of my favorite things about this practice: it gets easier. In the beginning, it might feel like a daunting task. What do I even write? But joy journaling sessions become a bright spot in your day. You start looking forward to them. You start noticing joy earlier in the day because you know you will want to write it down.
Why This Is a Practice Worth Building, Especially After 50
I think women our age have been told to count our blessings for so long that we have forgotten to pay attention to the moments we are actually living in. We are good at gratitude. We are less practiced at presence.
Joy journaling is a way of saying: this morning happened. I was in it. I saw the hummingbird. I wrote it down. And when I look back at my daily journal at the end of the year, or even from last year, I will have a record of a good life, lived in good moments.
A daily joy practice is also good for your mental health in a way that goes beyond positive thinking. It builds positive habits of attention. It supports personal growth in a quiet, inside job kind of way. It creates positive changes in how you move through daily life, not because everything is going well, but because you are looking at it differently.
It does not require that life be easy. Joy and hard times are not mutually exclusive. In fact, a positive journaling practice matters most in difficult seasons. Not because it minimizes negative things or tells you to re-frame negative thoughts into something they are not. But because it keeps you from losing the good things entirely while you are managing the rest.
There is always something. The coffee. The birdsong. The light. The moment. And next time you are having one of those days when everything feels heavy, I want you to open your journal and read back through what you wrote last time. The little joys. The good times. The positive moments, saved. Proof that joy was here, and that it will be here again.
That is what the happiness file knew. That is what joy journaling knows.
It is an amazing thing, really, how much good is already in your life. You just have to write it down.
“Joy Is the Serious Business of Heaven”
“Joy is the serious business of heaven,” C.S. Lewis wrote. I have always loved that line. It gives the small moments the weight they deserve. It is a joyful quest worth taking up simply because your daily life is worth paying attention to.
The hummingbird. The cup. The morning. The porch.
Write it down. It is enough. It is exactly enough.
Tell me: do you keep a joy journal, or any kind of noticing practice? What brought you joy today? I really do want to know.
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Have a wonderful day, friends.
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On My Radar
I woke up during the night because it was cold in our bedroom. I went to check the thermostat and saw the “battery” light was flashing. I headed to the basement to get the batteries and I stopped at the kitchen window to look out. Sitting on the deck railing was a large owl. We stared at each other for a moment. Imagine that. The owl remained where it was: I found the batteries and replaced them in the thermostat. The owl was still there. Amazing.
Georgia that is amazing. I love owls! What kind of owl was it, do you know?
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Elizabeth,
I have never started or interested in creating a journal. I can see why it’s a good thing to do. I’m an aware and in tune person. I always try to focus on the UP things that instantly jump starts each and every morning. Like today, having time to cuddle with my favorite husband (and only husband) getting ice on my foot to ease the discomfort. I love watching Sunday Morning, I’m a big fan of Jane Pauley’s, I find the stories uplifting and gets my mind away from the negative things happening in the political world.
Watching the football soccer game will be fun. I just hope there is no mean playing going on. I’m routing for Spain.
I’m glad you notice the things that are important to you in your life like watching a hummingbird on the porch with your mom. That is special.
I can now communicate with you from my iPhone. A big happy!
Have a lovely day and week to come.
It’s the end of a Sunday and I’m finally reading this. I’ve done gratitude journaling off and on. And I’ve also look for the joyful moments but not consistently. I’m so glad you wrote this because I think we can look at it as a form of resistance to all the bad and sad things happening in the world right now. It’s so easy to get depressed.
Today my joys are watching our hummingbird, the bluebirds feeding their babies, my black eyed susan flowers. Also I went to former neighbor and friend’s husband’s life celebration and got to hug her. I hadn’t seen her in years. And right now I have a cat on my lap and one in the window. Thank you for this reminder. Have a great week!