I can attribute most of my mindset growth to practicing gratitude every single day. It amazes me how something as simple as writing down what you’re grateful for can change your life. My only regret is that I waited so long to make gratitude part of my every day routine.
This post will be simple and short for two reasons. 1. Everyone knows how to be grateful for something, it’s not something you can really teach. 2. There is only so much I can say, it’s just something you have to start doing for yourself. My hope in this post is that I can show you how powerful gratitude is.
Why Gratitude?
Gratitude makes you feel good, it’s as simple as that. When you go through life and feel like you are entitled to everything, you more than likely you aren’t happy. Furthermore, when you actively search for the things in your life that make you happy or you are grateful for, you’re brain starts to rewire its self to look for the good. I can say that I believe this is why gratitude has such a huge impact on my life.
I have had a terribly negative mindset. If you want to check out some of my mindset hacks, check out my blog post here. My mind would automatically gravitate toward the bad and think of the worst scenarios that could happen. By finding things that I am grateful for, my mind now automatically searches for the good, it searches for the things that I am grateful for. It feels so much better to see the positive in situations rather than search out the negative.
Another benefit of gratitude is that it forces you to live in the moment. When your brain is looking for things to be grateful for in the moment, it makes it hard to worry about future or past events. For example, I use to have a really hard time when returning home from the mountains. I would be so stressed with all that I needed to get done before a new week starts that I would ruin any Sunday activities we had planned. When you are looking for things to be grateful for, it’s really hard to stress about things you can’t control!
How To Get Started
Gratitude can be practiced is so many different ways but I want to share with you how I do it. It’s simple and takes less than five minutes a day. I start my day with gratitude and I end my day with gratitude.
If you are looking for a cute gratitude journal, you can check out the one I designed here!
So, let’s start with the morning. In the morning I write down three things that I am grateful for. Easy peasy, three things and that’s it! I typically do this right when I get to work before I start doing any sort of daily activity or planning! This really helps me set the mood for the day. Instead of getting to the office and feeling like I have a million things to do, I feel like I have a sense of calmness.
In the PM, I do a gratitude dump. I simply write down everything throughout the day that made me happy or I felt grateful for. I do this literally right before I go to sleep. This helps me think of happy things right before bed instead of going to bed with worry.
Two Important Things
There are two very important things I want you to understand about gratitude.
First, it will change your life. You can read a million books, or listen to a million podcasts on how to change your life, but if you can’t do things with gratitude, you will never know true happiness. This is not some woo woo concept that was brewed up by witches, it is simply a practice that will change the way you see the world.
Second, if you can’t be grateful for the things you have now, you will never be grateful for the things you will receive in the future. If all you do is complain, that’s all you will do in the future. So, when you receive that fancy new car you’ve been wanting or that big house you’ve been dreaming of, you’ll find fault with it if you can’t find gratitude. And you can’t find gratitude if you don’t start practicing it.
I hope this post has been helpful and I hope you take five minutes out of your day to find some gratitude! You won’t regret it!