Reading old journals used to be tedious and embarrassing. It was frustrating to see how many times I had profound, "life changing" realizations, only to discover I've had the same realization over and over again in the years preceding - seemingly never retaining the lessons and ideas.

One thing that helped was building in space for dialogue with myself. Now, I only write original journal entries on the left side of a notebook and leave the right side for future responses. I make a habit of revisiting journal entries from a week, a month, and a year prior, etc, and expounding on the right side of the page with lessons learned later, counter points, and context from an "outside" perspective.

Naturally, this forms a sort of distillation of ideas, refining the concepts most relevant to me at any given moment, and keeping them present in my mind. It promotes a sense of continuity of self, and self-compassion as I'm frequently reminded of my growth and ability to change.

Yes it does. I don't journal every day, I keep each year to about 40-50 A4 pages and I won't write down all the banal stuff. The value lies in the fact that I will usually look at what life was like a year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years, 10 years ago and past-self is there telling me without the rose-tinted glasses. It makes me grateful for what I have today. If I need motivation today, the struggles that were written down serve as a reminder of what needed to be done to get to the present and that effort is required now to get to a higher plane tomorrow, next year, 5 years from now.