487+ ‘Need’ Writing Prompts
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Strengths and Struggles
Write about a personal strength and a personal struggle. Consider how the two may be related.
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Breaking Free
List three things or situations you feel the need to disentangle yourself from.
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Future Achievements
Imagine the future you have already achieved your biggest goal. Describe it in detail.
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Unrealized Ambitions
Write about a goal or ambition you have always had but haven’t yet accomplished.
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Ideal Future
Write about where you envision yourself in 5 years, describing your typical day.
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Achieving Harmony
Describe what the ideal balance between your work and personal life would look like.
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Map Your Self-Image
Create a visual or written ‘map’ of your current self-image, including both positive and negative components.
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Dream Career Discovery
Divulge the details of your desired profession or career and escalate the prospects you associatively imagine.
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Ingredients for Serenity
Write down what you need for a calm day to ensue, as if you’re compiling a recipe.
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Journey To Self-Acceptance
Write a journal entry elaborating a moment where you accepted an aspect of yourself neutrally.
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Recipe for Self Love
Imagine that self love is a recipe; what ingredients are necessary and in what quantities?
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Neglected Nouns
Choose three areas of your life that you think need improvement, but you always put off working on.
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Release the Negativity
Write a letter to your stress and anxiety, acknowledging its presence but also expressing your desire to let it go.
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Reflection Mirror
List down your shortcomings that you believe are restricting your self-growth and reflect on how you can overcome them.
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Manifesting Your future self
Visualise your best possible future. Can you describe it in details? How are you growing into this person?
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Reconstructing Past Dialogues
Write about an important conversation you had with the person you’re trying to heal the relationship with.
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Envisioning Positivity
Visualize your ideal future—everything from career to personal relationships to daily routines.
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Trust in the Future
Imagine you could see the future and that you have successfully rebuilt trust. Write about what that future looks like.
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Healing from Betrayal
Write a letter to the person who broke your trust, expressing your feelings and how you wish to move on.
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Finding Strength in Quotes
Reflect on a quote that inspires you, where you first heard it and why it motivates you during your recovery journey.
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Exploring Roadblocks
Write about challenges you have faced or are facing on your physical improvement journey.
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Art of Relaxation
Describe your ideal way of relaxing and unwinding.
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Mapping Out the Future
Document the key milestones you want to achieve in the next 5, 10, 15 years.
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Navigating Difficult Conversations
Reflect on a challenging conversation you’ve recently had or need to have with someone.
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Navigating Assertiveness
Address an issue where you feel you need to be assertive but are struggling to do so.
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Future Self Correspondence
Imagine writing to your future self a year from now—who has successfully managed his/her depression. What advice, reminders, or words of encouragement did they have for you?
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Setting Boundaries
Describe a situation in which you felt the need to set boundaries with your parents.
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Letter of Apology
Write an apology letter to yourself for a specific event, period of your life or frame of mind for which you blame yourself.
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Understanding My Anti-self
Write a dialogue with your depressed self, asking what it needs or what’s causing its pain.
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Mending via Mantras
Create personalized mantras, affirmations, or quotes that could help heal your emotional wounds.
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Spring Awakening
Write about a personal ‘spring cleaning’ of old habits or beliefs, and what you want to bring into your life.
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Forest Creatures Awakening
Imagine waking up one day as a small creature in the forest. Describe your surroundings, feelings, and adventures.
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Understanding Nutritional Balancing
Write about what your ideal diet looks like and how achieving it might influence your mental health.
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
Visualize and describe a ‘happy place’ where depression doesn’t exist. Then describe the journey one needs to undertake to reach this place.
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Public Face, Private Suffering
Reflect on how ‘masking’ depression in a professional setting affects your overall mental health.
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Bearing Invisible Scars
Explore a painful memory from adolescence and discuss its long-term effects.
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Beyond the Emotion
Write about depression not as an emotion, but as a medical condition, and deliberate on how this could help break the associated stigma.
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Empathy Prism
Write a letter of encouragement and support to someone else who may be experiencing depression.
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The Depressive Partner’s Perspective
Write from the perspective of a partner dealing with depression.
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The Power of Empathy
Write about the role of empathy in understanding depression, in the context of a personal encounter with someone struggling with depression.
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The Letter of Comfort
Write a letter to yourself from a place of understanding and compassion to read during an anxiety attack.
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Casting Director
Imagine being a casting director for a TV show or film. Describe the type of actor you would seek for the main roles and why.
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Chronicles of a Voyager
Pen down the experiences of a traveler who is journeying through different countries every week.
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Disappearing Act
Write a story centered around the sudden mysterious disappearance of a well-known public figure.
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Food Frenzy Fairytale
Imagine your favorite food has its own magical world. Describe the world and the characters.
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Grim Echoes
Write a story about a private investigator solving a murder that seems eerily similar to an old, unsolved case.
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Grimoire of the Unknown
You found an ancient, mystical book that initiates you into the world of magic. Write your first adventure as a novice sorcerer.
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A Helping Hand
Create a compelling story where your main character’s traits and skills are tested when they help a complete stranger.
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The Backward Tale
Pen a microfiction piece starting with the end of the story, then working backwards to the beginning.
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Poetic Empathy
Write a poem from the perspective of a person you’ve disagreed or argued with recently.
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A Show of Character
Put your protagonist in a situation where they perform an act of kindness randomly.
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Game-Changer Reveal
The epilogue reveals a plot twist that changes the reader’s understanding of the whole story.
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Lost in a Unknown Land
Your protagonist finds themselves in a completely strange environment without any knowledge of how they got there.
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Legendary Landscapes
Detail a primary geographical feature of your world and its impact on the culture and people living there.
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Graduation Address for Future Leaders
As the valedictorian, prepare a speech for your own graduation, focusing on what you feel your peers need to hear as they embark on their post-graduation journeys.
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Strategic Business Proposal
Choose an industry and write a business proposal for a new start-up company.
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Wizard’s Enigma
Craft a story around a young and inexperienced enchanter given the task of unlocking an ancient spell that could change the fate of the world.
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The Parallel Pet Universe
Imagine a world where animals are the dominant species and humans are the pets. What hilarious circumstances occur?