My Personal Journey with Journaling | An Introduction to Template Creation Shoppe

Hello all! My name is Heather and I am the founder of Template Creation Shoppe, an e-commerce business that designs digital & printable templates for business a personal use. I wanted to share a little bit of my journey with journaling and how that has become an inspiration for my business.

Why journals and journaling?

Journaling has always been a part of my life since I was about 11 years old. I'm honestly not even sure who or where I got the idea to journal from, but it is a practice I have stuck with for many years.

If I think back, I can still remember my very first journal. It had an antique green, hard cover with a picture of a young girl on the front. The book was small, had delicately lined pages, and it contained all the hopes, dreams, anger, sadness, and frustration of an 11 year old girl. 

I remember it well because just like then, my journal still feels like my best friend. My journaling process has changed dramatically since those early days (obviously!). Now, instead of writing about boys and school, I am goal planning, figuring out how I want to run my business, brainstorming new ideas, creating good habits, and identifying patterns that may be holding me back in my endeavors. My journaling process has matured with me over the years.

Daily Reflection template designed for reMarkable and other digital devices.

The one thing that has not changed for me, is why I journal... 

I journal to stay connected to myself. When I was young, I was dealing with a stressful home situation and had a tendency to bury my feelings. I never really learned how to express my feelings and emotions verbally, in a healthy way. But, I did learn to work through them by writing out the problem in my journal. This is a practice that has continued into adulthood and into my professional life. I find at times that I get stuck on my journey, and so I will sit with my journal and free-write until I figure out what is really going on in my mind. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes, sometimes it takes a lot longer.

Here are some ways that I use my journal now:

1. Monthly, weekly, and daily planning
2. Goal planning and tracking
3. Daily reflections
4. Daily gratitude
5. Brain dumping

Daily Gratitude Template designed for reMarkable and other digital devices. 

How has journaling influenced my business venture?

Template Creation Shoppe was born in December of 2020, basically by accident. During the COVID quarantine in the spring of 2020, I purchased my first reMarkable device as a part of my efforts to go "paperless". I quickly fell head-over-heels in love with the device, but quickly noticed a few shortcomings in the availability of out-of-the-box templates. I started creating templates to work for me, my business, and my personal journaling and planning needs. Little did I know, in creating those first couple of templates, I actually took my first step towards creating this new business venture.

My vision for TCS is to help people just like me who are looking for great tools for planning, goal setting, habit creation, business planning, home organization, and of course - journaling! I want people to stay connected to themselves and achieve their personal goals and directives.

I would love for you to check out my shop on Etsy to see all of my template offerings.