A history of complaining
I have never been a naturally positive person. As a kid, I was very quiet and shy. I was naturally skeptical and focused on taking in my surroundings to understand what was going on. I shied away from taking action unless I fully understood what was happening. I wanted to know for sure that I was doing the right thing. Around high school I became more outspoken and less shy. I still observed my surroundings and wanted to be sure that I was doing the “right” thing. While I was more willing to take action and provide an opinion, it was always with a hint of sarcasm in case I was wrong. Throughout college and now as an adult I surely haven’t lost my sarcasm ability. For someone who has a million things to be thankful for, I know I complain a lot. It just seems to go with the sarcasm!
The start of my gratitude journey
Around the new year I always get into a reflective mood. I like to look back on the past year reflecting on what I’ve learned. I also like to look forward to the year ahead to set new goals. However, I had never been a “word of the year” person before. For some reason, at the end of 2018 I decided to try it. I wasn’t going to force myself to find a word, but if one came to me I decided I would focus on it for the following year. Almost immediately the word grateful stood out to me and continued to stand out over the following weeks.
While I was excited about the idea of having this word for 2019, I didn’t really know what to do with it once I chose it. I’m the type of person that needs a concrete goal with specific action steps. I started brainstorming what that could look like for me and my word of the year. I settled on buying a specific gratitude journal. If you’ve never seen a gratitude journal before, it’s essentially just a journal that gives you space to write a few lines per day to explain what you are grateful for each day of the year. In my case I bought a journal that specified three items per day. This helped me to put some structure around my word of the year. It made the practice of gratitude feel achievable to me. It also felt like it was something I could actually make progress towards.
My daily intent reminder
I also decided I wanted a daily reminder of my intent to be grateful that year. After searching around I found MyIntent. MyIntent is a company that makes bracelets, necklaces, and keychains with a custom word or phrase. I chose to buy a bracelet because I knew I’d be most likely to wear that and see it each day as a reminder. MyIntent has a mission to create more meaningful conversations and positive actions from the words or phrases that they make into something wearable. I can attest to the conversations that my word bracelet started with others. It opened up a door to conversations that I likely would never have had otherwise. In fact, it opened up a conversation about gratitude as I was in Panama with my husband, before we started dating.
Consistency is key
I’m usually really great at starting things, and not as great at keeping up with them consistently. This time, I surprised myself with how consistent I was at journaling three grateful things per day. If I couldn’t write them in my journal for whatever reason, I’d keep a log of them on my phone to transfer into my journal when I had time. It was so easy to think of three things I was grateful for each day. Filling out my gratitude journal consistently made me realize how many good things I had been missing out on. I was more focused on the negative aspect of a situation or focused on complaining about a situation instead of being grateful.
Gratitude benefits: finding beauty in the everyday
There are many benefits to practicing gratitude. I’d like to highlight the two I noticed most frequently throughout the year. One of the things I noticed is that there were really simple things that I had just been missing in the day to day. When I didn’t take a few moments to reflect on the day with a grateful mindset, I forgot how much good existed in my daily life. Sometimes it was the sun shining after a stretch of cold or rainy days. Sometimes it was the realization that I could walk 10 feet to get a glass of clean, cold water. Sometimes it was a meaningful conversation I had with a friend or a colleague.
I hadn’t realized how many simple pleasures I was not even recognizing and appreciating because I never paused long enough to reflect on the good parts of my day. I was spending most of my energy complaining about the bad or over-analyzing various situations. After intentionally reflecting on my days with a mindset of gratitude for a year, I can now more easily see the beauty surrounding me in my day to day life. I find myself living more in the moment. Recognizing the beauty as it’s happening rather than reflecting on it later is more common. I also find myself smiling more. This could be a random child laughing, seeing a beautiful tree or flower on my way to work, or taking a deep breath of fresh air on a scenic hike.
Gratitude benefits: finding the good in a bad situation
Another thing I noticed is that even when I had the worst day with a hundred things to complain about, when I sat down to reflect, it was still easy for me to come up with things I was grateful for. Instead of complaining about spilling my coffee in my car, I chose to be grateful that I spilled it while I was still at home before I left for work so I could take care of it immediately. Instead of complaining about the bitter cold, I chose to be grateful because the snow is so beautiful and I get to experience all four seasons where I live. Instead of complaining about how tired I was because I had to wake up early, I chose to be grateful that I had a steady and well-paying job.
The way I could turn around almost every bad situation and recognize a moment, regardless of how small, that I could be grateful for, made me realize how miniscule my daily “problems” were. In many cases I was spending a lot of energy complaining over a minor inconvenience that didn’t matter. I was adding stress to my life unnecessarily. This doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to feel stressed out or sad or angry. It also doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ever complain about an inconvenience. I certainly feel and do all of those things. But ensuring I took time to reflect on my day balanced and shifted my mindset in the most unexpected and beautiful way.
While oftentimes my initial reaction is still sarcasm and complaining about an inconvenience, I don’t dwell in that space as long as I used to. I’m more quickly able to take a deep breath and find a glimmer of goodness. I’m more quickly able to laugh at a bad situation, where I would have found it incredibly stressful previously. Of course I’m still a work in progress. But my daily gratitude practice from 2019 has helped me get to a more grateful and happier place.
Continuing my gratitude practice
While I have not been consistent about keeping a gratitude journal after that first year in 2019, I have continued to practice gratitude. Sometimes this looks like asking myself while I’m journaling so I can expand on my gratitude. Sometimes this looks like a small recognition to myself as I’m falling asleep. Many times it looks like sitting at the dinner table with my husband, catching up on our day, and asking each other what we’re grateful for.
This year I have also started a new prayer journal that has a section for daily gratitude. So I’m back to a gratitude journal this year. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with three true things and sometimes it’s hard to stop after ten. It will continue to look different in different seasons of life. But I look forward to carrying on the practice of gratitude and passing it down to our children.
The impact of gratitude using data
For those of you that have read some of my other posts about health and fitness, you probably know that I have a WHOOP band. One of the optional items I can track in my daily WHOOP journal is expressing gratitude. What WHOOP has shown me over the past year or so is that when I regularly express and practice gratitude, it has a small, but positive impact on my recovery. I knew in general terms that it was helpful for me to practice gratitude, but WHOOP has given me data to prove it.
How to practice gratitude
I am by no means an expert in practicing gratitude. I still complain and have many ways to improve. But I have also made a lot of progress since my first gratitude journal in 2019. Implementing the practice of daily gratitude has helped me to recognize beautiful things in the mundane tasks of life. It has also helped me find more joy in difficult circumstances.
If you’re struggling to find a way to incorporate gratitude into your daily routine, I hope some of these ideas help.
- Ensure you have a trigger or reminder to practice gratitude. For me in 2019, this was my MyIntent bracelet. When I looked down, it reminded me to reflect on my day and what I was grateful for. For you this could be a post-it note on your mirror, a daily alarm on your phone, or a calendar reminder. My husband and I have recently started “daily to-do lists” to remind ourselves of commitments (external commitments and internal habits we want to maintain). Adding gratitude to your “daily to-do list” could be another trigger.
- Make time for it. You need a minimum of 1-2 minutes to practice gratitude daily! Don’t put it off. When you see your trigger, pause for a moment or two to center yourself and think about what you’re grateful for that day. My first year of my gratitude journal I would use my phone to keep track if I knew I wasn’t going to get to my journal before the end of the day.
- Keep yourself accountable. This could mean asking your spouse, kids, or friends what they’re grateful for. It could mean posting on social media or keeping a personal journal. For me, this was again the MyIntent bracelet that I wore the entire year as well as keeping a gratitude-specific journal. For me in 2024, it includes listing daily gratitudes at the same time as I pray and journal each morning. For my husband, he often journals about “Opportunities from God”. He reframes his obligations to opportunities, which helps remind him to be grateful for the opportunities, regardless of his personal feelings towards them.
I hope you find a new way to incorporate and see the benefits of practicing gratitude in your everyday life. If you have seen a positive impact from practicing gratitude or have other ideas for incorporating gratitude that have worked for you, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!
