I'm Starting a Journal Club and You're Invited

If you need communal support for personal reflection, I'VE GOT YOU

Dec 04, 2025

∙ Paid

We released The Next Right Thing Guided Journal in 2021 and I still use it as part of my personal morning liturgy nearly every day. I’m now starting my sixth one! This year I thought it would be fun to have some group connection around keeping this journal and I would love to have you join me.

Who is Journal Club for? It’s for you if you:

are curious about keeping a journal but have never been able to do so consistently
have The Next Right Thing Guided Journal on your shelf but felt intimidated by how to start, what to write, or when to write in it
enjoy the process of journaling but feel in a rut
don’t enjoy the process of journaling but are open to it if the format is super simple
know there’s probably some value in reflecting on your life but it doesn’t come naturally to you
have some decisions to make but feel at a loss with how to make them
want some low-key communal support for personal reflection

Finally and most importantly, this is for you if you want it to be. Truly, if you want to be in my Journal Club, you’re in!

What’s the vibe?

I’ve chosen three guiding principles for this Journal Club, our Club Core Values if you will (I will!):

We keep it low-key. No over-thinking, over-functioning, or being too fancy. That applies to both you as a participant and to me as the facilitator.
We are consistent. There is a difference between being rigid and being consistent. Rigidity tells us we must journal in a particular way and likely conform to an inflexible standard. Consistency, in turn, is rhythmic. We imperfectly move in the direction we want to go and over time it makes a difference.
We have fun. Taking ourselves too seriously is for a past, tired version of ourselves. There are many things to be heavy-hearted over, but journaling is not one of them. We’ll do our best, open our hands, and keep a light heart along the way.

How will it work?

In keeping with our Club Core Values — low-key, consistent, fun — we’ll keep things simple with monthly check-ins.

I’ll run it right here on Substack and will send a post to paid subscribers once a month to share my personal progress and open up the comments for questions and conversation. I’ll be honest and tell you which pages in the journal I love and which ones I always ignore.🤷‍♀️

I’ll also share more organically and in real-time on our Soul Minimalist Private Instagram (likely in stories that I will save to highlights). If you’re a paying subscriber here but didn't know we also had an IG account, I’ll leave a link to the form at the bottom of this post.

Over time, depending on interest and participation, I may go live to take questions and have more conversation, but we’ll feel that out as we go.

How do I join?

I’m running the Journal Club right here on Substack and in our Soul Minimalist private Instagram (will leave the link to join that at the bottom of this post if you’re not there yet.)

If you’re not on Instagram, we’ll do check-ins here as well so you can still benefit from the Club.

Here’s the best part: This isn’t the only time to start. The journal is set up so that you can start at the beginning of ANY month of the year. So you can watch how we do it over the next few months and start participating in February or July. There’s literally no wrong.

I’m starting my new journal this month so if you want to begin with me, here are your next steps:

Get a copy of The Next Right Thing Guided Journal. If you bought a copy years ago and filled out a few pages or abandoned it half-way through, use that one! If you need a new copy:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Bookshop
Baker Book House
(Or wherever you like to buy your books)
SubscribeThe Soul Minimalist. As I said, Journal Club is something I'm organizing for paying subscribers. If you’re already a paying subscriber to The Soul Minimalist, you don’t have to do anything extra. As always, if you can’t currently swing the $5/monthly subscription, we offer scholarships to all who ask. Follow the instructions on this page to request one.

If you’re a paying subscriber but are not currently interested in Journal Club, don’t worry. This isn’t going to become a journaling Substack. It will simply be one check-in here per month. You can lurk to see if it interests you, join in anytime, or ignore it all together.

I’ll send our first monthly check-in at the end of this month or beginning of January. You are not behind!

Meanwhile, I’ll likely start chatting about this in our private Instagram. If you are already a paying subscribe here, below you’ll see the form you can fill out for the Instagram group. If you become a paying subscriber after you read this, you’ll see that form once you join us!

As always, I’m glad you’re here.

What are your questions? Are you in? If you have a question, leave it in the comments and I’ll answer there. If you’re in, go ahead and type “I’m in!” in the comments because that’s fun.