For many of us, we’ve spent the last few days focused on being grateful as we’ve gathered around our dinner tables for a Thanksgiving meal. In a year where so much has changed and we continue to navigate through a pandemic, do you find yourself being grateful for things you once took for granted?
While we may share our gratitude more during the season of Thanksgiving, having a daily gratitude practice has many benefits.
What is the difference between being thankful and having gratitude?
Yes, we are thankful for our jobs, good health, and being able to put food on the table for our families, but gratitude is more than just verbalizing these things. Gratitude is about feeling the true appreciation at the core of our being and fully embracing it.
Trust me, I get it. With all the noise in the world today, even those of us who have practiced gratitude on a daily basis for years can get distracted. Gratitude is easy when our lives are going well, but what happens when things are challenging?
Focus on being selfless instead of selfish.
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “well I guess I was in the right place at the right time?” Did you catch yourself saying this after something didn’t go according to your plan? Picture this, you are on your way to work and you left home just in the nick of time to be able to stop at your local coffee shop to fuel up for the workday. Inside, you run into a long-lost friend and strike up a conversation. Now you are left with a choice, do you rush out the door to work or do you take a few minutes to have a genuine conversation?
As Tony Robbins once said, “Life happens for us, not to us.”
What if your long-lost friend was put on your path for a reason that day? What if they needed your encouraging words? What if you selfishly ran out the door of that coffee shop focused on the next thing you needed to do and ignored the clues in your surroundings?
Each and every day we have lessons and experiences the create our life and our choices. The choice of how we navigate those experiences and lessons is up to each of us.
Maintaining Gratitude
Now, more than ever, so many things are being thrown at us from our jobs, families, friends, government, etc. You’re probably wondering, how do I remain grateful through it all? While it’s not easy, it is possible! We’ve assembled some of our favorite tools that keep us on track and our minds focused on gratitude.
For starters, we recommend creating your own gratitude journal. It can be a simple notebook, or you can utilize some of the helpful tools below that will provide you with some writing prompts. Each day write down three things you are grateful for in the morning and three things you are grateful for before you go to bed. Encourage yourself to think deeper each day. Share this practice with your significant other, your children or other family members and watch how it transforms your mindset.
For additional tips and tricks, listen to our podcast episode focused on gratitude.