Common Morning Pages Struggles (& How to Work Through Them)

Morning pages (a practice created by author Julia Cameron that involves writing three stream-of-consciousness A4/letter pages by hand each morning) is an activity that sounds simple, but making it a habit can feel harder than you might expect. This is especially the case if your pages bring up some internal “stuff” around the value and content of your writing, or if you face practical constraints and challenges.

If you’ve been finding it hard to be consistent with your morning pages, know that you are in good company! Here are some of the most common struggles with morning pages, plus a few suggestions for how to approach them:

1. "I don't have time in the morning"

As a mother, I know that “wake up earlier” isn’t always realistic advice for everyone. If you can do that, great, but if this is not a season of life where that’s remotely desirable (sleep is important!), instead try “whenever” or “anytime” pages. Yes, the “morning” part of morning pages is ideal, but if it’s also an obstacle that is getting in the way of journaling at all, “whenever” pages are your friend. Progress over perfection!

2. "I don’t know what to write"

Morning pages don’t have to contain profound insights or startling epiphanies. If you are facing down a blank page and don’t know what to write, “I don’t know what to write” is a perfectly legitimate way to start. Write that as many times as you need to until another thought surfaces. If you find that you are writing pretty much the same things every day, remember that what we resist persists. Is there something that needs to be processed in there? Is there a mental block that you’re coming up against? What would happen if you zoomed out and wrote about the experience of processing or having the block itself rather than the details?

If not knowing what to write about persists, you could also try using an open-ended prompt to get your writing flowing, then see where your mind takes you. If you think that might be helpful, you can get a year’s worth of daily journaling prompts here.

3. "My inner critic starts taking over”

A writing practice like morning pages can feel vulnerable, and this is a prime domain for the inner critic. Thoughts like “This is terrible,” “I’m not doing this properly,” “My writing sucks,” and any other statement that critiques a) what you’re doing, and b) you as a person, is classic inner critic territory. Julia Cameron explains that she gives hers a name and a character, which adds a degree of psychological distance and almost transforms the inner critic into a caricature, both of which can help defuse its impact. But, importantly, this isn’t about making the inner critic disappear or trying to ignore it; not only is this unrealistic, but sometimes it can have useful information for us, even if the way it delivers that information isn’t the most constructive. Instead, I’ve found that the way to deal with the inner critic is similar to what I wrote about anxiety in this post: it can come along for the ride, but it can’t get behind the wheel. Recognising these thoughts as the inner critic is a useful start, and learning to strengthen other, more compassionate parts of our internal dialogue helps too (this is a huge topic, and if you’d like to dive deeper you can check out my book about the inner critic here).

4. "I can’t keep a streak going and feel guilty"

And I’m here to tell you: no one cares. No one is keeping track of how often you do your morning pages… except you. If consistency is an issue, try not to focus on streaks and instead focus on the WYCWYC approach: doing what you can, when you can. One page counts, five minutes of “whenever pages” is better than nothing.

If gaps happen, try to stay curious and view them as information, rather than failures. What led to the gap? What are your thoughts around the gap? Are those thoughts helpful, or might they be getting in the way of you restarting?

5. "My pages feel pointless"

If this is coming up for you, you might be doing it right! Yes, morning pages can help us process things that are going on in our lives and taking up a lot of emotional bandwidth, but they can also be useful for clearing mental clutter and making space for new, more interesting and productive thoughts and ideas.

I have found that even during times when my morning pages felt boring and pointless, when I’ve looked back on old entries after a while, there are still patterns to notice and information to be gleaned from these entries. What felt pointless on an individual daily basis looks less pointless over weeks and months.

It’s also worth remembering that the point of doing morning pages is not to get better at writing morning pages; it’s to take the benefits of this writing practice into the real world, into our creative practice, and into other areas of our lives.

6. "I can't write by hand / my wrist hurts"

Drawing on the progress over perfection mindset I mentioned above, while Julia Cameron talks about writing by hand, if that isn’t available or comfortable for you, typing or dictating are great substitutes. As I discovered while researching my master’s dissertation, there are benefits to writing by hand over typing, which I’m going to share more about in the future, however accessibility is also a crucial factor! If typing or dictation makes your experience easier, these are totally viable options. Like many of the struggles and suggestions here, this isn’t about following the morning pages prescription to a tee or doing it “right,” but rather about finding a practice that is going to work for you, with your particular situation.

7. "I feel worse after writing, not better"

This is a common, if somewhat frustrating, situation. You go into your morning pages practice looking forward to purging everything that ails you and cleansing your mind in the process, but you end up feeling worse as a result. Morning pages can stir things up before they settle, and while it’s not comfortable, it can just be part of the process. If you are finding that these unsettled feelings are continuing into your day and affecting other aspects of your life, you could consider doing your morning pages at another time of day (like the whenever/anytime pages above). You can also try choosing an activity to pair with your journaling, such as getting outside or exercising, to offset these feelings. If you find these emotions hard to shift or they are particularly intense, you might find it helpful to seek support beyond the page to unpack them further and perhaps get an outside perspective from a coach or therapist.

Finally, I have found that grappling with some of these struggles is part of what makes morning pages really useful. Outside of the journaling itself, learning to deal with this kind of discomfort and find ways to manage our own internal barriers is a hugely valuable process. Remember, doing anything—even imperfectly—is better than doing nothing at all.

I hope this post helps you as you continue your morning pages practice. You’ve got this!

Photo by Jamie Hagan on Unsplash