Being thankful for the good things in our lives everyday goes a long way towards enhancing wellbeing.
How so?
What we put in our mind often determines how life goes for us. It impacts our physical health and the kind of life we live.
Focus on the negative and you’ll probably end up stressed out, worried, distressed and even depressed.
Focus on the positive and you’ll see your mood uplifted, your inner terrain becoming peaceful and your overall happiness improving.
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The idea that I love about daily gratitude practice is that it is the perfect opportunity to redirect our mental resources from the negative to the positive.
The magical thing about switching our focus and taking control of our mental resources is that it can improve wellbeing over the long term. Indeed, if we no longer get stressed out and worry so much, then we are more at peace. Peace is more conducive of physical health than sustained stress and worry.
So, have I convinced you? If I have, read on.
I know different people may practice and even understand gratitude differently.
For the purpose of this post, the practice I’m talking about involves going through the positive things – our blessings – we have in our lives, keeping a record of them if we can and honouring them. When I talk of positive things, there is no positive thing that is too little or too big. For instance one day you may be thankful for the beautiful sunset you got to witness then the next you may be grateful for the unexpected reduction in car repair cost. The former may sound trivial compared to the latter but my point is not to underestimate the significance of seemingly tiny positives. If you’ve had a terrible day, just the act of witnessing a beautiful sunset may be all you need to turn that stressful energy in you into peace. Realizing this and honouring this gift of nature is what gratitude, the way I describe it above, is all about. Being able to push away the stress of the day to make room for peace is powerful and if mother nature is there to help, accept the gift and give thanks for it.
Today I’d like to give you 4 ways you could go about practicing gratitude everyday if you wish to start your gratitude journey but need a little help.
1. Using Post-it Notes
These are post-it notes designed specifically for gratitude practice.
What you would do everyday is fill at least one then store it somewhere safe like a box, an accessory pouch, a mason jar, a plastic pocket, etc.
The point of storing is so that you can revisit later on and appreciate and reflect on how far you’ve come.
2. Using a Gratitude Journal
A popular way many like to go about daily gratitude practice is to keep a gratitude journal where we’d be jotting down the things we are grateful for. It works just like the post-it notes except listing and storing happens in the same one place: the journal. Feel free to layout your blessings in any format you wish. You can keep it very simple and go with your thoughts or use the bujo journaling method if you want it to also be fun and a bit of a creative challenge. Just ensure you use a pen that’s suited to the type of paper in the journal to avoid ink bleed.
3. Mental Practice Done Alone
If you lead a busy life and really aren’t up for more writing and paper buying, a simple way to go about it is simply to take 5 mns to run through the above task mentally, maybe as part of your morning routine or before bed time or after dinner everyday. Ideally the same time everyday. You won’t be able to revisit a thing with this method but at least you’ll still be developing a gratitude habit.
4. Verbal Practice Done With Someone Else
Another option would be to practice gratitude with someone else. If you happen to live under the same roof as someone else you trust, whether a friend or a spouse or else, invite them to join you in your gratitude practice. Involving someone else may enrich the experience for the two of you. You would not write a thing but instead talk it out between yourselves. Though this method doesn’t allow you to revisit your past blessings, it has the advantage of adding some fun to the activity.
As you can see, daily gratitude practice does not need to cost you a fortune, or even a dime, nor be difficult. Above are four ways you can go about it.
Whereupon, I wish you the best of luck with starting your gratitude journey and hope you found this post helpful.
Alex
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