Although I think journaling is good since it gets you in the habit of writing it is not the same as life story writing. Journaling tells how you feel about that week or day. Life Story writing gives you the ability to reflect on those days later. I know that I always talk about those people at Genealogy Conferences that come up to me and talk about their Great Grandmothers journal written 100 years ago but we have the ability to build a better life story. Journals tend to allow us to pontificate and also to change our feelings about a certain subject with ever noting it. Life story writing takes those feeling about “current events” and then you put them in today’s wisdom. Now that I think about it you really don’t need any triggers to help your remember to write a memoir if you have 
journaled. You need to read those old pages like visiting an old friend and see how you feel about it now.
Time has a way of changing how we feel. It has a way of letting us remember things with a little less dramatic and with a little less emotion. When you write about your life you may want to write about how you have changed since the original writing was done. It might make a great story but you may feel the same way and that is good to write about too. Life story writing allows your reader to understand you and the choices you have made and why you made those choices. A journal is a great way to start a life story but with out perspective it is not enough.
Triggers:
- Did I ever keep a diary or journal?
- Am I writing about what is really important to me?
- Am I writing my life story or life history with my readers in mind?
- Have my feelings about situations changed over time? What are those?
- If I had written a journal how often would write? Is it more often than I am writing my life story?
