When the creator, Celeste, of Her Words, Her World got into contact about her journal I was instantly intrigued.

Journaling is something I see other people doing. My Instagram is full of people with these beautiful journals pouring everything out onto the pages. Not me. It’s not because I don’t want to, I just don’t know how. I’m not good at self reflection at all and the thought of sitting in front of a blank page and trying to write something about me is daunting.

I’ve known for a while that I need to spend a bit more time on me. Not just writing lists for me or creating goals but actually exploring what makes me tick. It’s very easy to get so caught up in everything that I need to do with my life that I never take the time just to reflect.

As soon as I opened the Kickstarter for Her Words Her Guide it caught my attention straight away. Could be this be what I’ve been after? Something structured that will allow me to reflect and learn more about myself? I read through the details about the book and then something caught my eye…

“Women are under so many external pressures to achieve goals for so many roles that it’s hard to take a step back to understand the big picture — what motivates them, what empowers them, what they value, and what makes them feel valued.” 

That is pretty much what has been in my head for a while now. I have so many things I want to do or achieve that I’ve been struggling the really work out what’s important to me lately.

I got back to Celeste pretty quickly, saying I was desperate to get my hands on this book. She was able to send me the first two chapers in ebook format so I could try it out. As soon as I received it, I cracked out my Leuchtturm, made a cup of coffee and sat down to some journaling.

The book

You get eight chapters in the book, each focused on a different character virtue: Self-awareness, Purpose, Confidence, Perseverance, Humility, Curiosity, Courage, and Compassion. I received the first two which were self-awareness and purpose. Within the first day I had completed most of the first chapter and hit the ‘review’ part of it. You don’t have to binge a chapter in one go though. Each one is split into different, clear sections meaning you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want. You may be able to devote a Saturday morning to working on it or it just be fifteen minutes each evening before going to bed. There’s no right or wrong way this really. I stopped at the point I did as I was left with some ‘homework’. I then intend to come back to it next week and review how I did.

The book is designed with all the room you would need to complete all the written activities in the book. However, I liked using a separate notebook for this. It meant I could pick out key points and quotes and write them down. If you have a Hobonichi or similar daily planner you could probably incorporate this book into your daily pages. As I have a Hobonichi on the way, that’s probably what I will do.

Structure

For each chapter there’s four main areas which then each split down even further meaning you really can complete each chapter in bite sized chunks. Read gives you the definition of the character attribute and helps you understand why it’s important. Reflect is fairly self explanatory and includes different self reflection activities. Respond is what I like to call the ‘homework’ section, where you try and put the attribute into action in day to day life. Finally, there’s a review section for that attribute. 

Naturally, I found the reflect part the hardest as it’s something I’m not used to doing.

Self-awareness

This was an interesting chapter to begin with. Self-awareness is probably something I thought I was good at. The first activity involved basically scoring you as to your level of self-awareness. Mine came out as average understanding. It then followed with me having to write a description of myself. No surprise that the first things I came up with were my negatives! It then moved onto my values and that was a bit of an eye opener. For different areas of your life you had to list you values and assess how important it was to you and how well you’d done with that recently. There was nothing that was a massive surprise. However, having it written down how far adrift you are with your values in some areas can really make you take notice.

There’s then further self reflection on some really helpful areas of my life. Such as how I react to stress or being in different groups of people and the affect that has on me. Particularly when it comes to my career these have provided some very good insights.

When I finished up that section I was left with some pieces of homework. As this point mindfulness was brought into the book. I’ve dabbled with mindfulness in the past and it does have a good affect on me. I’m looking forward to practicing some mindfulness, along with completing my other homework in the coming week.

Overall first impressions?

I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise to say I’m loving this. This is just the kind of thing I’ve been looking for for a while now. Something that helps me reflect on the things that matter and complete some journaling too. As it’s something that’s so new to me it’s difficult to articulate it appropriately. Hopefully over time that will come and by the take I get my hands on the full thing and am able to do a full review I’ll be able to convey how this has helped me.

Looking at the prices this is great value. For just £6 you can get the digital version of the journal or for £21 (plus shipping) you can get the physical copy. There’s also other rewards available featuring extra goodies if you really wanted to help Celeste meet her goal. You can find all the Kickstarter details here. 

I was provided the first two chapters in this book in exchange for a review. My views are 100% my own, I can’t wait to own the full thing!