Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are looking forward to spending some quality time with your loved ones. It’s been another year of ups and downs for most of us. I pray that your year has included more positives than negatives and that the coming year finally finds everyone moving in a consistent direction toward good health, joy, and success.
Like many people, I like to focus on gratitude during the holiday season, and I wanted to share a few ideas with you to help you make gratitude a part of your regular routine. I hope you find these helpful!
1. Appreciate every good thing in life, not just “big” things.
To develop a habit of being grateful, appreciate everything. There is nothing too small to be thankful for. There is nothing wrong with appreciating simple things – beautiful weather, a good cup of coffee, a purring cat – these all qualify as things to be grateful for. Recognize everything when practicing gratitude, don’t discount something because you fear it’s not “important enough” to recognize.
2. Find gratitude in your challenges.
Gratitude is not just being thankful for positive experiences. Looking at challenging situations with an open mind can help you become aware of what you are truly thankful for. By being thankful even in negative or difficult situations, it is possible to appreciate how such challenges help you grow and improve as a person.
3. Keep a gratitude journal.
This is one of the more common suggestions for practicing gratitude, but it really is one of the best. Keeping a journal of the things that you are grateful for can help you keep track of them and allows you to look back and recall the positive things in your life.
Keeping track of positive thoughts helps you pay attention to the good things in your life, and writing them down means you have to focus on what you’re writing and consciously think about what you are grateful for without being disturbed by distracting ungrateful thoughts.
4. Volunteer.
Giving back to others has been shown to help people appreciate things that they may otherwise take for granted. It can help promote gratitude and increase well-being, fostering even more gratitude.
In “Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being”, Professor Martin Seligman looked into a range of variables that contribute to well-being. His research showed that volunteering is the ‘single most reliable way to momentarily increase your well-being’.
5. Spend time with loved ones.
With the upcoming holiday season and the increase in the number of vaccinated individuals, you may well be looking forward to spending time with people you love and enjoy, perhaps for the first time in many months. Spending time with friends and family not only gives you the opportunity to strengthen your relationship, it also enables you to share your gratitude. One easy way to let someone know you appreciate them is to listen to them intently rather than missing what they are really saying because you are too busy waiting for your own chance to speak.
Putting these 5 simple strategies into place can help you make gratitude a part of your everyday routine.
The Gratitude Ritual
A gratitude ritual is a consistent time that is set aside to practice gratitude. Rituals take commitment and effort, especially in the beginning, but with regular practice, they can become second nature.
The first step is to implement is a routine of expressing your gratitude at a specific time of day. Popular options include first thing in the morning, lunchtime, and before bed.
Use a small notebook and keep it at a place that you return to at the same time every day. Write the date at the top of the page, then set an intention by telling yourself that you will write for a fixed amount of time.
As a ritual becomes a habit, the amount of time required tends to shrink, and that’s fine. During this time, write about what you are grateful for – as mentioned above, this can be anything that comes to mind, from big things such as your family or health to much smaller things; your team won today? Awesome! Your daughter got a good grade on her math test? Perfect! Most importantly, be specific. Write as many things as you can in the time you’ve allowed for the practice.
Do you find writing burdensome? That’s OK. For many people, the most convenient way to develop a gratitude ritual is to set aside time to use a gratitude app such as Reflectly Journal & AI Diary, Gratitude, or Presently, A Gratitude Journal.
Research has shown that regular gratitude journaling can boost your mood and extend the feeling of gratitude for weeks or even months! This is a great time of year to begin the practice of making gratitude a habit!