Why Journaling Might Be the Most Important Thing You Do in 2026 | OnegirlOnegoal Podcast

As we move into 2026, many people are carrying more emotional weight, mental exhaustion, and unprocessed experiences than ever before.

In this episode, we talk about why journaling isn’t just a creative habit or a productivity tool — but a powerful mental, emotional, and spiritual practice for this season of life.

This is a calm, honest conversation about slowing down, paying attention to your inner world, and creating space to process what you’re carrying instead of pushing through it.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, emotionally tired, or unsure where to begin with healing, journaling can be a gentle and accessible starting point.

You don’t need to be a writer.
 You don’t need fancy prompts.
 You just need a safe place to be honest.

In this episode, we explore:
– why journaling matters more than ever right now
– how journaling supports mental and emotional health
– journaling as a place for reflection, clarity, and healing
– why this practice can help you move through 2026 with more awareness and care

If this conversation helped you feel a little less alone, I’d love for you to stay connected.

You can subscribe to the podcast so these conversations are here whenever you need them.
 And if you want to go deeper, you can visit my website — it’s linked below — where this community continues beyond just listening.

Next Steps & Resources:
– Subscribe to the OnegirlOnegoal Podcast
– Visit the website to explore journaling reflections and community spaceNew episodes are added regularly.

Chapters

• 1:08 Why Journaling Might Be the Most Important Thing You Do in 2026 | OnegirlOnegoal Podcast

Transcript

Welcome to one girl, one go podcast. I am Shaniqua the girl, the goal to help you become your better self. I hope you're looking good, feeling good, smelling good, all the goods.Now for somebody, this may seem familiar. Okay, because I'm bringing back my podcast, my ministry, which is helping you heal [...0.8s] wholeheartedly mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, all of the things. That is what god has called me to do.So I'm walking into this year of 2026, and I'm doing that calling, and I pray that you come on this journey with me. I have a heart, [...0.5s] um, after the people, people of gods people, cause we all love god, right?And I know that there is, there are places that god desire you to be, but mental [...0.6s] is a battle up there is holding you back a lot, because you're dealing with so many mental health issues, so many things going through your mind.Maybe you don't think you're good enough, maybe you feel stuck, you feel [...0.8s] call but unsure, whatever that thing may be that you're battling depression, anxiety list, just anything mentally. I am your girl.I am here for you, and we're gonna get through this thing together. Because god has taken me through many, many trials and tribulations throughout my years of life. And I'm here for you.I just think of me as that friend, that girl you can call on, [...0.6s] and talk to all your problems, to all your issues. And I'm gonna try my best to give you spirit LED advice to give you guidance, prayer and hope, and also correction when you're wrong. Okay, because that is something that I needed throughout this journey of life.Haha, so I guess y'all, so I am back with the podcast. Um, so you'll be watching me on YouTube, or you will be hearing me in all your podcast platforms. So check out, follow me, um, on the weeks that I upload.I am trying my best to upload Monday through Friday, but if not, always make sure you are tuned. You are subscribed to the channel, is free to do, and also follow me on my website, which is all things shaniqua, simply shaniqua. Com. That's the website you can find me at.So, yeah, we're gonna jump right into this New Year, so Happy New Year, happy all years, happy every single thing. We made it, we cross over to another day, and this is another year.I know I don't know about the resolutions, but this is another year, [...0.5s] another day in the chance at life to do something great and to start off fresh. Don't listen to everybody who saying, oh, don't do this, don't do that.Have some goals for yourself and set them and accomplish them. They don't have to be long drawn out goals. They can be weekly, daily, but I'm telling you, you have to have something to look forward to that will keep you on track mentally. That is something else that is great to do. So maybe I'll be another five guest episode another time.Alright, yeah, so today we are be, gonna be talking about [...0.4s] journaling [...0.9s] in 2026 is very important for you to start journaling, and I'm gonna tell you why.Okay, [...0.5s] I say, is very important because when you journal, when you write down your thoughts, you write down your feelings, you write down your emotions, you write down your day to day life. You can always look back. And here is a story time.So in the end of 2025, I'm thinking around October, November, maybe [...0.6s] I sat with my journals.I just pulled them off of my bookshelf and I looked at them because I have journals dating back from when I was in my teens, honey, you know, them dumb years when you talking, talking junk, you know, to say sorry, mama, but you talking mess about [...0.7s] people and you, like, they don't like me.Mama did this or daddy did this, or [...1.0s] my cousins was over here and they got on my nerves, you know, just a little stuff. Or [...0.6s] you got a boyfriend or maybe somebody you like them years.Okay, but fast forward through all of that stuff, I saw that [...0.6s] I felt like looking back now that I had to be depressed. I was going through moments of depression. I didn't even know that it was a thing.I just thought maybe it's just life. This is how my life is going. I always were riding there, and say, I don't know what I'm doing my life. I don't know what I should do. Why is it that I don't know what to do? I don't know what I want out of life.Why is this at prime years, teen years, that is in my thought pattern? And I believe that's because god had called my life, and I did not know that all, cause I wasn't even really thinking about, you know, getting saved back to how I feel with the blessed to keep the Holy Ghost.So I think my nonetheless, [...0.7s] I'm just thinking about life, and how life just feels like it's just too much to handle.And so years go by, and I look in the journals, cause this mind you, I'm reading my journals, right, and I'm looking at dates, so always date your stuff, always title it where you're at, [...0.5s] um, what's going on.The evening is a nice, a morning, [...0.4s] put all that stuff down, you would thank me later, because it puts you in the mood. You would visually be able to see whenever you begin to look back at it.So I'm looking in my journal, and I'm moving into, I wasn't married yet, so I had to be my [...1.2s] early 20s, early 20s or late teens, [...0.9s] and I'm looking, I'm talking the same way, I'm talking the same talk, [...0.5s] but I'm also referencing god.So I had some knowledge of god, and that comes from my mom. And I knew who god was, and I knew who he could be in my life, but I never stepped out, never [...0.8s] really kind of inquired about it. I just was okay, but I knew god, and I saw that I was writing to god, [...0.8s] and I was praying to god, and I was asking god to help me.And it's amazing what [...0.7s] your spirit does when your flesh doesn't even know what's going on. [...1.0s] And I was saying, god, I don't know what to do. I'm so tired of living like this. I'm so tired of being this way. I'm so tired of being confused. I'm tired.God, I'm lonely, I'm all of these things, [...0.5s] and during this time, I think [...0.5s] couple of years went by or whatever. That's when my hair started coming out [...0.6s] some. I don't know what was going on, but, yeah, it started coming out for a second time because my hair came out when I was in, like, middle school. [...1.3s]Horrible, but I made it through, and so this is another time my hair started coming out, and I'm like, god, what is going on? Why me? Like, it's like a revolving door, and I don't understand why these things keep happening to me. So then you get into guy problems and, [...0.5s] um, all this. He's getting on my nerves, and oh, he's nice.I'm did this, so it's kind of like, I was seeking after [...0.8s] somebody [...0.6s] to feel some type of void that I was feeling, and that's totally not good, another podcast on the time.But [...1.4s] the, [...2.5s] the thing that I kept noticing was [...0.9s] that I was feeling the same throughout these years. No matter if I was 18, if I was 20, 23, 24, 25, I constantly had the same feelings. [...6.5s]And I looked at myself in 2025, and I felt those feelings coming back. [...1.5s] You would think after you have so many things, and god blesses you, and god delivers you, god save you, set you free, that these things would just be [...0.6s] gone. But god said, no, you got to work on it.So when I read those journals, I was like, I am so tired of the enemy getting a victory.I'm so tired of being plagued with these same thoughts, is no way I should still be feeling the same way. And I told myself, I said, girl, [...0.7s] you gotta come up out of this, because you cannot tell me that you're still battling these same things in 2025.So in that moment after I read that, I finally had enough, now mind, you, I had, I read those journals other times, [...0.6s] but it's at the point when you're tired and you're fed up with being played with by the enemy, right, the devil, [...0.6s] you're, you're tired of, of constantly having the same feelings, the same thoughts, the same actions, the same [...0.5s] motives, the same. It's just always the same. I'm tired of being in this position, I'm tired of, of coming back here.So I told myself, I see you got to make some changes, you, it's gonna start with your mind, right? It's gonna start with the way you think, the way you handle situations, the way you react.So the more, of course, that you read your Bible, you begin to get scriptures inside of you, and you begin to learn who god is. And with me already knowing this, I can fight back against everything that is thrown my way. I can fight back and say, I will not think this, I will not stay in this.I'm coming up out of this. So [...0.5s] I say all that to say, [...0.5s] write the journal. You never know what that journal will turn into a book, who knows, or something that can help someone else along the way that you're writing what you've been through.And hopefully one day I can put all that in some type of something, but for now [...0.7s] it was meant for me to see that.So I could bring it to you to tell you to document your feelings, to lay it all out, [...0.4s] get it all off of you, because that's one of the best things that you can do too, is [...0.5s] writing things out.Like, you don't wanna constantly hold self into your thoughts because [...1.0s] who knows when you read it back to yourself, you may say, oh my goodness, but girl, get it together. Or you may say, oh wow, like I did, I'm going through the same things and today is the day that it stops.And god is just too good, right? God is too good for us to constantly be repeating cycles when he's already told us that he's our help. He can get us out of these things, and we have to take him at his word.So I'm encouraging you to take god at his word to go to Walmart, [...0.5s] Dollar General, Family Dollars, [...0.6s] 5 below, wherever it is to get that journal, get that notebook, get whatever it is, and start right now in 2,026 documenting talking to god in those journals, whatever you wanna call it my book to god, you know, my heavenly prayers. Whatever you want it to be, it does not matter.But start writing those things down, [...0.5s] so you can look back in 2,027, and you can say I made it through this, [...0.6s] I made it through that, or you can see if you still in the same place you was January the first and January the first 2,027 you can say, ah, we're not doing this a whole another year.Okay, haha, [...0.4s] yeah, so that's why it's very important to start that journaling right today, right today. And because god got you, god sees you, and god loves you, and you're gonna make it through whatever you're dealing with. You're gonna make it through, like, [...1.4s] you have no choice but to get through this. Okay, no choice at [...0.4s] all. [...1.6s]Yeah, so that's all I got for you today. I pray that your day goes well, and you be blessed throughout this day. I pray that god covers you and your family.I pray that god sees you, he hears you, and that whatever he responds back to you, hear and you listen, and you do what he has called you to do. Okay, and you're gonna be fine, you're gonna be alright.Just take a deep breath, right, [...2.0s] and release it [...2.1s] in Jesus name. It is done, alright, so I will catch you guys and explain. Y'all be blessed. [...5.0s][...5.0s]