Quick answer
What is the best self-care journal?
The best self-care journal asks how you are, not how well you did: The Give Yourself Kindness Journal, the self-compassion journal recommended by Harvard and Oxford psychologists. Each day it asks how you're feeling, then helps you answer yourself as kindly as you would a friend.
Clinical psychologist Dr Michelle Chung asks: "What if self-care could be found and fully embraced in the tiniest moments?"
Dr Michelle Chung, clinical psychologist and head of her own private practice. Read her article on mindful self-care
Prefer something different? Three other options are compared below.
No forced positivity. Every feeling is welcome.
About this guide. I'm Rachel, a qualified meditation teacher (DipBSoM). After Compassion-Focused Therapy, I went looking for a journal that would look after me and found trackers and forced positivity. So I made my own, and two of the options below are mine. Everything clinical here comes from named experts, with links.
Why I recommend The Give Yourself Kindness Journal for self-care
The Give Yourself Kindness Journal is the self-care journal I recommend, because it looks after how you feel rather than measuring what you did. It's for the days you're being harder on yourself than you'd ever be on anyone else.
When I went looking for a self-care journal, I found trackers and forced positivity. Neither helped, so I made the one I needed. Here's what it gives you:
- When self-care has become one more list: undated pages with nothing to track, no streak to break and no score to keep.
- When you're not sure what you're feeling: an emotion tool on every page, so you can find a word for it.
- When you're being hard on yourself: prompts that ask what you'd say to a friend, then help you say it to yourself.
- When "look on the bright side" makes it worse: prompts that make room for the hard part of the day first, and over 50 gentle reminders like "Be careful how you talk to yourself, you are listening".
- When you'd like it to stay fresh: a different prompt every day for 90 days.
- When you want to trust it: recommended by clinical psychologists at Harvard and Oxford, and used by counsellors with their clients between sessions.
- When it's a gift: wrapped in bespoke tissue paper, with a free handwritten note if you'd like one.
The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
A guided self-compassion journal that helps you understand your emotions and respond to yourself with kindness instead of criticism.
📔 3-month guided journal💬 90 days of changing prompts🗓️ Undated⭐ Recommended by Harvard and Oxford psychologists
- A different prompt on every page, so it never becomes something you complete on autopilot
- A visual emotional awareness tool on every page, not one wheel at the front, so you can name what's there
- Over 50 gentle reminders woven through, like "Be careful how you talk to yourself, you are listening"
- Undated, with nothing to track and no streak to break
224 pages, A5, pistachio green cloth cover, 120gsm FSC-certified paper, ribbon marker, printed in the UK. Wrapped in bespoke tissue paper.
Three real prompts from inside The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
"What has challenged you today? Talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend - write down what you would say."
"Imagine you have thirty minutes to do something for you, to show yourself some of your own love and care, what would you do? Over the next few days, try to make time to do what you've described."
"I feel proud of myself for... (Remember nothing is too small)"
Notice that the first one asks about the difficulty first, and then asks you to answer it. That order is the entire method.
The psychologists and counsellors who recommend it
It's recommended by clinical psychologists at Harvard and Oxford, and accredited counsellors use it with their own clients. Here is what they say, in their own words.
Rachael Oliver, MBACP
Accredited counsellor, who uses the journal with her clients
"I love using these beautiful journals with clients throughout their counselling journeys. The prompts and areas to think about are helpful to shine light on their feelings, experiences and thought processes. The way the journal is constructed helps validate their entire experience and avoid toxic positivity, encourage reflection and ownership of feelings. I love them and feel privileged to be able to use them."
What this means for self-care: "validate their entire experience" is the phrase I'd point at. Not the good parts of it. All of it.
Read Rachael Oliver's review alongside the rest →
Dr Chris Germer, PhD
Clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time), Harvard Medical School | Co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program with Kristin Neff, taught to over 250,000 people worldwide
Read Dr Germer's review alongside the rest →"A warm invitation to make friends with your emotions and yourself!"
Professor Willem Kuyken, PhD, DClinPsy
Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science, University of Oxford | Listed by Web of Science in the top 1% of the most cited scientists in the world
Read every expert review in full →"…Her journal's are not only aesthetically pleasing, they scaffold my writing. Writing can be creative, beautiful, resourcing, but it can also invoke an inner critic, rumination and procrastination. Rachel has curated the experience to make the writing intrinsically rewarding and the journal something to treasure."
Discover The Give Yourself Kindness Journal →
Best self-care journals compared
Side by side, so you can see which job each one does.
| Journal | Best for | Format | Recommended by | What's inside |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Give Yourself Kindness Journal | Being kinder to yourself, especially if you're hard on yourself | Undated guided self-compassion journal. 90 days, every page different, with an emotion tool on every page | Clinical psychologists at Harvard and Oxford. Used by accredited counsellors with their clients | 224 pages, A5. Over 50 gentle reminders. Pistachio green cloth cover, 120gsm FSC-certified paper |
| The 30-Day Gratitude Journal | Gratitude that feels real, never forced or repetitive | Undated. 30 days, a different thoughtful prompt each day. No lists of three | Psychotherapist Carrie Pollard, MSW RSW | A guided gratitude meditation I recorded, prompts for hard days and QR codes through to the research. 120gsm paper, made in the UK |
| A planner or wellness tracker | Organising your week, your habits and your goals | Dated or undated pages for plans and tracking | Varies | Schedules, habit trackers and goal pages, depending on the publisher |
| A blank or dot-grid notebook | An established practice, when you already know what to write | Blank or dot-grid pages, no prompts | Not applicable | Space, and nothing else |
Which self-care journal suits you?
The right self-care journal depends on what you need from it right now. Pick the line that sounds closest to how you feel.
"Self-care has started to feel like another list."
→ The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
There's nothing to track or tick off. Each page simply asks how you are.
"I'm hard on myself, or worn out by it."
→ The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
Its prompts ask what you'd say to a friend, then help you say it to yourself.
"I'd like gratitude, without the pressure."
→ The 30-Day Gratitude Journal
Thirty different prompts and no numbered blank lines, so gratitude never becomes another thing to get right.
"I want my week organised."
A planner looks after your time. It's a different job from a self-care journal, and the two can sit side by side.
"I already know what to write."
If you already guide your own reflection kindly, blank pages give you all the room you need.
"It's a gift for someone going through a hard time."
→ The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
It arrives wrapped in bespoke tissue paper, and its undated pages wait until they're ready.
Other self-care journals, and who each one suits
The 30-Day Gratitude Journal
🌱 Best for gratitude that feels real, whether you're just starting out or you've found gratitude journaling forced or repetitive
What it offers:Thirty prompts and nothing repeats: your senses one day, a letter you never send the next, something worth keeping in a mistake after that. There's a guided meditation I recorded, QR codes through to the research, and premium 120gsm paper with a luxury textured cover, made in the UK.
How it's different:There are no numbered blank lines, because a blank line on a hard day is just somewhere to fail. It's undated and only thirty days, so finishing it is realistic.
Choose this if:You'd like to notice more of the good, without a journal implying you should have noticed already.
Want to feel more grateful? Start with The 30-Day Gratitude Journal. Want to be kinder to yourself? Choose The Give Yourself Kindness Journal. They're different practices, so they work well together, one after the other or at the same time.
A planner or wellness tracker
🗓️ Best for organising your week
What it offers:Structure for your plans, habits and goals.
How it's different:It looks after your time rather than your feelings, so it works well alongside a self-care journal.
Choose this if:What you need most right now is order.
A blank or dot-grid notebook
📓 Best if you already know what to write
What it offers:Complete freedom.
How it's different:There's no question on the page, so it suits an established practice more than a hard day.
Choose this if:You already guide your own reflection kindly. Read my comparison of a blank journal and a guided journal →
What is a self-care journal? Self-care, not self-monitoring
A self-care journal supports how you feel. A self-monitoring journal records how you did. Both look like a lovely notebook and ten minutes in the evening, which is why it's worth telling them apart.
Self-monitoring asks
- How many glasses of water?
- How did you sleep, out of ten?
- Did you move today?
- How productive was this week?
Self-care asks
- What was hard about today?
- What are you actually feeling underneath that?
- What would you say to a friend in this exact position?
- What do you need?
The first set produces data. The second produces relief. And if you're already someone who runs on being good enough, the first set quietly becomes one more scoreboard where you can come up short.
If that line landed, it's worth naming what's underneath it, because it isn't really about notebooks. A tracker stings when rest already feels like something you have to earn, when sitting down without having finished the list feels like getting away with something.
That's a different problem from choosing a journal, and a bigger one, so I've given it its own page: self-care when you don't feel you deserve it. Clinical psychologist Dr Michelle Chung's answer to it is the one I'd want you to have either way: "rest is not the enemy of success; it is its foundation."
Dr Michelle Chung
Clinical psychologist specialising in anxiety-related disorders, trauma, mood disorders and ADHD | Head of her own private practice
"…What if self-care didn’t require a two-hour yoga class, a tropical retreat, or even an uninterrupted evening?…"
"Mindfulness offers a way to refill our inner well without waiting for the perfect conditions and realize that the most profound beauty often hides in the mundane."
What this means for self-care: it's the permission many of us are looking for. Self-care isn't a project with a completion rate. It can be four minutes and a difficult feeling that finally got said out loud.
Read Dr Chung's full article: The art of mindful self-care →What to look for in a self-care journal
A good self-care journal asks about the hard part, changes its prompts, gives you nothing to fall behind on, and is built on something real. Those four apply to any journal on any shelf, including mine.
It asks about the hard part
A journal that only asks what went well leaves you nowhere to put the day you've actually had. Look for prompts that make room for difficulty before they offer anything.
The prompts change
Answer the same question every evening and it's easy to start writing without thinking. Variety helps keep you present for it. Nic, an accredited mindfulness and compassion teacher, puts it this way: "I love how the journal prompts change throughout which helps keep me motivated with my practice."
From Nic's review of The Give Yourself Kindness Journal. Nic is an accredited Level 4 Mindfulness and Compassion teacher (CPCAB). Read her review
Nothing to fall behind on
Undated pages, no streaks, no scores. Self-care that keeps a record of your failures is not self-care.
It's built on something
Ask what the approach is grounded in, and who has read it. Clinical psychologist Dr Andreas Comninos, writing about journaling, notes: "Decades of studies have demonstrated its wide-ranging benefits…" A journal built on Compassion-Focused Therapy and self-compassion research, and reviewed by clinical psychologists, gives you more to trust than a lovely cover alone.
From Dr Andreas Comninos' contribution to The benefits of journaling
Dr Chris Irons
Clinical psychologist and specialist in Compassion Focused Therapy | Co-director of Balanced Minds
"…from a Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) point of view, it’s useful to consider which part of ourselves is doing the journalling…"
"…it could be that it’s a fearful part of you that is writing, or an angry or self-critical part…"
"In comparison, CFT tries to support people by initially helping them to develop a compassionate part of self - a part that is wise, strong and caring."
What this means for self-care: a tracker hands the pen to the part of you that assesses and finds wanting. That's not a neutral act on a bad week, and it's the reason the prompts matter far more than the cover.
Read the full article, with three clinical psychologists →How to use a self-care journal without it becoming a chore
Let it be small
Five minutes counts. One sentence counts. The version you'll actually do on a tired Tuesday beats the version you imagine doing on a good one.
Don't judge what comes out
Messy handwriting, half-finished thoughts, things you'd never say aloud. Nobody is reading it. Writing it neatly is usually a sign you've started performing.
Skip it when you need to
If it's become an obligation, it has stopped being self-care and started being homework. Put it down for a week. It'll be there.
Expect it to be gradual
The shift is usually quiet: catching your own harshness a little sooner, or being slightly gentler after a mistake. Nothing arrives all at once, and noticing more clearly is itself the progress.
When you might need more than a journal
Self-care includes asking for help. If things have felt hard for a while, please speak to your GP. A self-care journal is a companion to support, never a substitute for it.
Mind has information and support. Samaritans are on 116 123, free, at any time of day or night. If you're in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.
My verdict: the self-care journal I'd choose
Nothing to track, nothing to fall behind on, and reviewed by clinical psychologists at Harvard and Oxford. That's The Give Yourself Kindness Journal:
- A kind question every day, different for 90 days
- An emotion tool on every page
- Over 50 gentle reminders
- Undated, so you can come back whenever you need it
I hope you find the right one for you, whether that's mine or not.
Frequently asked questions
What is a self-care journal?
A self-care journal is a journal with gentle prompts for looking after how you feel. It isn’t a planner or a habit tracker. Rather than asking what you got done, it asks what was hard and what you need, then helps you respond with kindness.
What should I look for in a self-care journal?
In a self-care journal, look for four things: prompts that ask about the hard part of your day, prompts that change, nothing to fall behind on (undated pages, no streaks or scores), and an approach built on something real, such as self-compassion research, ideally reviewed by clinical psychologists.
What's the difference between a self-care journal and a diary?
The difference between a self-care journal and a diary is what each one asks. A diary records what happened. A self-care journal asks how it landed and what you need. One is a record, the other a conversation with yourself, and the prompts make the difference.
I've tried journaling before and quit after a week. Why would this be different?
If you’ve stopped journaling after a week before, the format may have been part of it, and that isn’t a failing. Prompts that repeat can start to feel mechanical, and dated pages can turn a missed week into a row of empty pages. Varied prompts and no dates can make it easier to come back.
What if I feel worse after journaling?
If you feel worse after journaling, that’s worth taking seriously, and it often comes down to the type of journal rather than you. A blank page can hand the pen to your inner critic, and forced gratitude can leave you feeling further from yourself. Psychotherapist Carrie Pollard notes that when gratitude is forced, ‘it leaves us feeling worse, not better.’ A journal that makes room for difficulty first tends not to do this. The Give Yourself Kindness Journal is built that way. It also includes gratitude every day, held gently alongside harder feelings rather than instead of them. If you’re processing trauma or something severe, please work with a therapist alongside anything you write in.
Do I have to write every day?
No, you don’t have to write in a self-care journal every day. Treating it as compulsory can turn it into another obligation. Write when it helps, whether that’s daily or a few times a week. An undated journal means the gaps cost you nothing.
What if I'm not good at writing?
You don’t need to be good at writing to use a self-care journal. The prompt does the thinking, you just answer it, and “I don’t really know” is a real answer. Clinical psychologist Dr Andreas Comninos describes journaling as ‘free, simple, and portable’. No skill required.
Can I use one alongside therapy?
Yes, a self-care journal can sit alongside therapy as somewhere to put things between sessions. Accredited counsellor Rachael Oliver, MBACP, uses The Give Yourself Kindness Journal with clients ‘throughout their counselling journeys’. It doesn’t replace therapy, so check with your therapist that it suits your work together.
Are self-care journals just for women?
No, self-care journals aren’t just for women. Looking after yourself isn’t about gender, and neither are feelings. The Give Yourself Kindness Journal has a calm pistachio green cloth cover and prompts that suit adults and teens alike.
Is a self-care journal a good gift?
A self-care journal can be a lovely gift, especially for someone going through a hard time or who’s hard on themselves. The Give Yourself Kindness Journal arrives wrapped in bespoke tissue paper, and you can add a free handwritten gift note in the order notes at checkout. Undated pages mean they can start whenever they’re ready.
About the author
Rachel Smith, DipBSoM
Founder of Give Yourself Kindness and qualified meditation teacher
I'm a qualified meditation teacher, trained with the British School of Meditation and passed with distinction. I'm not a therapist or a psychologist, so everything clinical on this page comes from named, credentialed professionals.
I built my journals after my own recovery through Compassion-Focused Therapy. They have since been reviewed by clinical psychologists including Dr Chris Germer of Harvard Medical School and Professor Willem Kuyken of the University of Oxford, and are used by counsellors with clients worldwide.
Give Yourself Kindness makes two journals: The Give Yourself Kindness Journal, a 90-day self-compassion journal recommended by Harvard and Oxford psychologists, and The 30-Day Gratitude Journal, a gratitude journal with a different thoughtful prompt each day.
A note on honesty: both journals recommended here are mine. I've also said plainly that if you want your week organised, or you already know what to write, a planner or a plain notebook will serve you better than either of them.
Continue reading
From the experts quoted here
-
The art of mindful self-care: why small moments matterDr Michelle Chung, Clinical Psychologist
-
The benefits of journaling, from 3 clinical psychologistsDr Chris Irons, Dr Josh Mirmelli and Dr Andreas Comninos
-
Being with difficult emotionsDr Kristin Neff, PhD, University of Texas at Austin
Related guides
- Self-care when you don't feel you deserve it, for when the problem isn't which journal
- Best guided journals compared
- Self-compassion journals compared
- The best journal for stress relief
- What mental health experts say about The Give Yourself Kindness Journal
Looking for a gratitude journal instead? The 30-Day Gratitude Journal gives you a different thoughtful prompt each day, with no lists of three. You can also compare the best gratitude journals.
