Journaling Cards
Prompts for When You're Tired of Trying
– 35 Printable Journaling Cards for Creatives on the Edge of Burnout –
This gentle, printable card deck was created for creatives moving through burnout, fatigue, and emotional overwhelm. Each card offers a soulfully crafted journal prompt, a moment of reflection, and a soft, supportive note — designed to reconnect you with your creative spirit when everything feels too much.
Perfect as a quiet daily ritual or a self-guided pause whenever you need to realign, this set supports nervous system regulation and creative healing. Use it with your favorite notebook, or print the cards on high-quality paper and keep them at your side.
35 printable journaling cards
A6 & 5.5x4.25 format, PDF
printable 120 page guide booklet, PDF
gentle instructions & suggestions for use
calming, minimalist design
easy printing at home
This is a digital product – no physical item will be shipped.
14,90 €
4,64 €
Prompts For When You’re Tired of Trying
There comes a time on the creative path when effort alone no longer feels like enough.
When the rhythms of daily life — the bills, the deadlines, the constant comparison — start to drown out the quieter voice inside that once moved you to create.
Prompts for When You’re Tired of Trying was born from those moments.
Not from a place of striving, but from a deep need to pause — to step back, reflect, and rebuild from the inside out.
As a self-employed musician and writer, I’ve lived through seasons where persistence alone couldn’t carry me anymore.
What did? Returning to myself. Slowly. Gently. Through words, through honesty, through listening.
This deck of 35 journaling prompts offers a space to do the same.
Each card pairs a thoughtful question with a note of encouragement and a real-life example — small anchors to steady you, especially when you’re tired, doubtful, or unsure where to begin.
Accompanying the cards is a beautifully designed guidebook to support and deepen your journey.
Inside, you’ll find reflections on the creative process, ideas for making journaling a nourishing ritual, and a full reference of the prompts organized by theme.
It’s not about doing more — it’s about coming home to your own voice, one small page at a time.
Creativity doesn’t thrive on constant trying.
It thrives on connection — to yourself, to your breath, to the life you are already living.
If you’re ready to meet your art — and yourself — with more compassion, this deck is here to walk beside you.
The Guidbook
This card deck was born out of a quiet but powerful belief: that the heart of any creative life is not productivity — it’s relationship.
Not just relationship with the work.
But with yourself.
Your inner weather. Your rhythms. Your stories, your needs, your resistance, your longing.
Becoming an artist — whether through music, words, dance, film, painting, clay, or any other medium — is often imagined as a calling or a gift. But in truth, it’s a practice of relating. Not a straight path. Not a fairytale.
A real, ongoing conversation with your own inner landscape.
We don’t become artists by pushing harder.
We become artists by learning how to stay close — to ourselves, especially when it’s hard.
By tending to our relationship with our energy, our self-trust, our doubt, our voice.
This deck was created as a companion to that relationship.
A space for reflection when you're overwhelmed, unsure, or simply tired.
A way to reconnect not with an ideal version of yourself — but with the one who’s here now.
Because that’s where the art begins.
It begins with you.
Building a Relationship with Your Art
This card deck was born out of a quiet but powerful belief: that the heart of any creative life is not productivity — it’s relationship.
Not just relationship with the work.
But with yourself.
Your inner weather. Your rhythms. Your stories, your needs, your resistance, your longing.
Becoming an artist — whether through music, words, dance, film, painting, clay, or any other medium — is often imagined as a calling or a gift. But in truth, it’s a practice of relating. Not a straight path. Not a fairytale.
A real, ongoing conversation with your own inner landscape.
We don’t become artists by pushing harder.
We become artists by learning how to stay close — to ourselves, especially when it’s hard.
By tending to our relationship with our energy, our self-trust, our doubt, our voice.
This deck was created as a companion to that relationship.
A space for reflection when you're overwhelmed, unsure, or simply tired.
A way to reconnect not with an ideal version of yourself — but with the one who’s here now.
Because that’s where the art begins.
It begins with you.
14,90 €
4,64 €
For When You Are Tired of Trying
This deck was created for the tender moments — when your energy is low, your vision feels distant, and the pressure to “keep going” no longer feels sustainable.
If you're here, you're likely someone who cares deeply, who creates with heart, and who sometimes finds themselves holding more than they can carry. These cards are not here to push you, fix you, or ask more from you. They’re here to offer space. Reflection. A slow return to yourself.
I’ve been through those quiet seasons of exhaustion too — the kind where even beautiful things start to feel heavy. This deck emerged from that terrain, and what I learned there, I now offer to you.
Use these prompts in your own rhythm — daily, occasionally, or whenever you feel the fog roll in. Let them hold you softly, and remind you that your creativity doesn’t disappear when you’re tired. It only asks to be met more gently.
May these cards be a quiet companion on your way back to your own center.
Theme’s This Journaling Card Deck Covers
This deck was designed with the tender creative in mind — someone who may feel tired, stretched, or unsure of their direction, but who longs to keep their connection to creativity alive.
The prompts gently help you explore core themes every artist comes across on their creative journey:
Permission for Resting
Rethinking Productivity
Reframing Time
Self-Worth
The Inner Critic
Perfectionism
Comparison
Overthinking
Self-Trust
Rekindling Joy
Creative Life vs. Everyday Life
Finishing Projects
These themes were chosen because they reflect the real lives of creative people — especially those navigating self-employment, passion projects, healing, or sensitive nervous system.
Our Mission
At The Art of Journaling, we believe that creativity doesn’t begin with output — it begins with inner connection.
We create thoughtful, gently crafted journaling resources to help artists, writers, and deep feelers reconnect with themselves — so that their outer work grows from an authentic, nourished inner life.
Our mission is simple:
To make the invisible process of self-reflection visible — and to honor it as a vital part of creative growth.
We honor slowness. We honor softness. We honor the messy middle where true art is born.
Here, your worth isn’t measured by productivity, but by presence.
Your pauses, your questions, your quiet persistence — these are part of the art.
Welcome to a quiet rebellion — a space where tending to your inner world is the creative act.
About The Author
Sarah Stumböck is a writer, musician, and creative guide based in Germany. Through her project The Art of Journaling, she creates tools and spaces that help artists reconnect with their inner worlds. Her work is rooted in the belief that sustainable creativity grows from self-compassion, not pressure. Sarah’s writing and music invite a quieter, more honest relationship with art — one that begins within.
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14,90 €
4,64 €