How to Start a Gratitude Practice
STARTING A GRATITUDE PRACTICE is a powerful way to feel more content, grounded, motivated, and compassionate towards yourself and others.
It’s been scientifically proven that keeping a regular gratitude practice will help you feel more positive emotions, relish your good experiences, improve your mental health, build stronger relationships, and deal with adversity. Cultivating gratitude can even help you feel fewer aches and pains, according to a 2012 study published in Personality and Individual Differences. You can also check out this article in Positive Psychology which lists 28 benefits of bringing more gratitude into your life. Included on the list are increased self-esteem, improvement in romantic relationships and friendships, reduced materialism, enhanced optimism, increased patience, improved sleep, and recovery from depression.
So, with all of the amazing benefits that the practice of cultivating more gratitude brings, how exactly do we start? This article covers some tips.
First, start by simply observing and noticing. Take a moment to lift your eyes from the screen and look around you. Can you name 5 things silently in your head that you can see in your immediate field of vision that you’re grateful for? Don’t limit your list to solely physical objects. Your list can include the sunshine on your face if you’re outside, the feel of the breeze, a beloved fur baby you have sleeping next to you, your favorite book sitting on the shelf, the cup of coffee you’re drinking, the list can go on!
If you feel stumped for whatever reason, start with your 5 senses. What can you see, feel, hear, taste, or touch right now in this moment that you’re grateful for? Another way to find something to be grateful for is to replay the events of your day back in your mind. Is there anything someone did for you, or something you did for yourself, that you’re thankful for? This could be as simple as someone holding the door open for you, exchanging quick eye contact and a smile with a stranger as you walked down the street, or you can simply thank yourself for taking the time to cultivate more gratitude in your life.
If you liked this exercise, commit to making time in your day to stop what you’re doing and name 5 things, people, places, etc. around you that you’re grateful for each day. You can set a reminder on your phone or pick a time, perhaps when you’re relaxing and winding down for the day, lying in bed just before you go to sleep, or when you wake up each morning, to look around and name what you’re grateful for.
The second way you can start a gratitude practice is to keep a gratitude journal. Similar to the first method, commit to a time each day, except instead of thinking about what you’re grateful for, sit and write it out. This can be an amazing way to keep a record of what you’re grateful for so that in times of need you can refer back to your journal and be lifted up by everything in your life that brings you joy.
Your journal can be a plain notebook with lined paper you pick up from the store, or you can get a guided journal specific to starting a gratitude practice. If the idea of a guided journal with prompts geared towards helping you live a life of gratitude sounds amazing, check out my guided journal I published through Rogue Vision Press (Rogue Vision’s “mothership” so to speak), which is sold through Amazon. Our journal also includes a place to record a positive affirmation for the day, reflections, and a mood tracker/check-in at the end of each day. And for a super affordable option, you can purchase a downloadable gratitude journal which you can fill in digitally or print out in our Etsy shop.
Another simple way to start a gratitude practice is to focus on thanking the people around you and those you meet throughout the day. You can do this verbally or in writing. More than just a simple “thanks,” make it more meaningful by describing what the person did, acknowledging the effort they put in, and describe how their actions benefitted you. You can probably tell that this might be geared towards people you interact with more frequently like coworkers, friends, or your significant other, but you can still try this with anyone you meet throughout your day!
For example, if a barista makes a particularly good coffee drink for you that day take a moment to smile, acknowledge how good the drink tastes, and thank your barista. The more effort you put in to recognize the other person’s actions and the benefit you got from them, the stronger the feelings of gratitude become, and you’ll cultivate more warmth, depth, and presence in your relationships as an added bonus.
Lastly, the most important thing is to commit to cultivating more gratitude. Whether your practice is every day or a couple of days a week, stay committed to yourself and keep reminding yourself of the benefits you’re receiving by cultivating more gratitude. It may not feel natural at first, especially if we’re experiencing emotional upheaval or high stress, but over time the practice of gratitude will become easier.
May your practice be a beautiful mirror of all you have to be grateful for.
Chelsea Rose Ross is a writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She travels part-time in her van named Ivy across the American West. Chelsea is the editor of Rogue Vision, a publication on Medium, as well as the owner of Rogue Vision Press, a publishing house dedicated to producing tools for mindfulness, gratitude, and manifestation. You can find her on Instagram at @roguevisionpress
