What does it mean to practice gratitude?

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Self Development Topics

Self Development Topics

Intro

Being grateful is all about moving from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. You can have everything you possibly want in life and still feel miserable, while you could also have absolutely nothing and be the happiest human alive. How is this even possible? There are many possible reasons — one of which is your perspective of the things that happen in your life. Your perspective is simply what you choose to take away from the situations you find yourself in and not necessarily what actually happened. Reality is subjective anyway. Gratitude is more than just feeling thankful, it’s a deeper appreciation for someone or something that produces longer lasting positivity. Engaging in a regular practice of gratitude can give us so many positives in our lives. Gratitude can change our perspective for the better and force more positive thinking. This positivity can play a role in having a healthier lifestyle with less worry, stress, and negativity. 

 

What does it mean to practise gratitude?

Gratitude is simply defined as the state of being grateful. It involves expressing thanks or appreciation for something, from a gift to life itself. Gratitude involves recognition of the positive things in your life and how they affect you. This can range from acknowledging a beautiful flower you pass on the sidewalk to the feeling of thanks that comes from recovering from a serious illness.

You can practise gratitude in lots of different ways, like:

 

Benefits of gratitude

Gratitude creates an abundance mindset

“If you look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you will never have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey. An abundance mindset is a belief that there are enough resources and success in the world to share with others. When you are grateful for what you have, you fuel your abundance mindset; which in turn creates more abundance to be grateful about.

 

Gratitude lets you leverage what you have

“Where focus goes, energy flows” — Tony Robbins. One of the most important universal concepts I should learn is leverage. Leverage simply means to use something to maximum advantage. If you are grateful for the things you already have, you will have the awareness and motivation to use them to your maximum advantage.

 

Gratitude changes your perspective

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.” — Paulo Coelho. How you feel about any situation is all about your perspective. If you have a secure roof over your head, food to eat, and you are in good health, then you are already luckier than the majority of the world’s population. 

 

Some more reasons as to why gratitude is so important.

 

Ways to practise gratitude

Keep a Gratitude Journal: Establish a daily practice in which you remind yourself of the gifts, grace, benefits, and good things you enjoy. Recalling moments of gratitude associated with ordinary events, your personal attributes, or valued people in your life gives you the potential to interweave a sustainable theme of gratefulness into your life.

 

Remember the Bad: To be grateful in your current state, it is helpful to remember the hard times that you once experienced. When you remember how difficult life used to be and how far you have come, you set up an explicit contrast in your mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.

 

Ask Yourself Three Questions: Meditate on your relationships with parents, friends, siblings, work associates, children, and partners using these three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulties have I caused?”

Share Your Gratitude with Others. Research has found that expressing gratitude can strengthen relationships. So the next time your partner, friend or family member does something you appreciate, be sure to let them know.

 

Come to Your Senses: Through our senses—the ability to touch, see, smell, taste, and hear—we gain an appreciation of what it means to be human and of what an incredible miracle it is to be alive. Seen through the lens of gratitude, the human body is not only a miraculous construction, but also a gift.

 

Use Visual Reminders. Because the two primary obstacles to gratefulness are forgetfulness and a lack of mindful awareness, visual reminders can serve as cues to trigger thoughts of gratitude. Oftentimes, the best visual reminders are other people.

 

Make a Vow to Practise Gratitude. Research shows that making an oath to perform a behaviour increases the likelihood that the action will be executed. Therefore, write your own gratitude vow, which could be as simple as “I vow to count my blessings each day,” and post it somewhere where you will be reminded of it every day.

 

Watch Your Language. Grateful people have a particular linguistic style that uses the language of gifts, givers, blessings, blessed, fortune, fortunate, and abundance. In gratitude, you should not focus on how inherently good you are, but rather on the inherently good things that others have done on your behalf.

 

Go Through the Motions. Grateful motions include smiling, saying thank you, and writing letters of gratitude. By “going through grateful motions,” you’ll trigger the emotion of gratitude more often.

 

Think Outside the Box. If you want to make the most out of opportunities to flex your gratitude muscles, you must look creatively for new situations and circumstances in which to feel grateful. Please share the creative ways you’ve found to help you practise gratitude.

 

Daily Gratitude Journaling

The practice of writing in a journal, a diary, or just scribbling notes to ourselves on pieces of paper, has both a rich history and present-day appeal. The famous 20th-century novelist and diarist Anaïs Nin believed writing serves “to heighten our own awareness of life…to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.” Writing has a remarkable way of shifting our awareness—keeping a journal can be an accessible way to experience that shift. As a hobby, journaling is inexpensive, portable, and can brighten our quality of awareness, making sense of our thoughts, feelings, perspectives, our own developing story line as it happens. It gives us a chance to slow down, breathe, turn to a fresh page, and “get real” about what we’re thinking and feeling—also referred to, particularly in therapeutic settings, as expressive writing. Although we refer here to writing, journaling is not only about putting words on paper. Visual journals filled with sketches, doodles, or any form of art you desire, vastly expand the options and the accessibility of journaling practice. You don’t have to erase your doodles, correct your grammar, or worry about garnering Likes and emojis from a virtual fan club. In other words, expressive journaling is expressing yourself, for yourself.

 

How to Do It

There’s no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal, but here are some general ideas as you get started. Write down up to five things for which you feel grateful. The physical record is important—don’t just do this exercise in your head. The things you list can be relatively small in importance (“The tasty sandwich I had for lunch today.”) or relatively large (“My sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy.”). The goal of the exercise is to remember a good event, experience, person, or thing in your life—then enjoy the good emotions that come with it.

 

9 Gratitude Writing Tips

As you write, here are nine important tips:

  1. Be as specific as possible—specificity is key to fostering gratitude. “I’m grateful that my co-workers brought me soup when I was sick on Tuesday” will be more effective than “I’m grateful for my co-workers.”
  2. Go for depth over breadth. Elaborating in detail about a particular person or thing for which you’re grateful carries more benefits than a superficial list of many things.
  3. Get personal. Focusing on people to whom you are grateful has more of an impact than focusing on things for which you are grateful.
  4. Try subtraction, not just addition. Consider what your life would be like without certain people or things, rather than just tallying up all the good stuff. Be grateful for the negative outcomes you avoided, escaped, prevented, or turned into something positive—try not to take that good fortune for granted.
  5. See good things as “gifts.” Thinking of the good things in your life as gifts guards against taking them for granted. Try to relish and savor the gifts you’ve received.

 

  1. Savour surprises. Try to record events that were unexpected or surprising, as these tend to elicit stronger levels of gratitude.
  2. Revise if you repeat. Writing about some of the same people and things is OK, but zero in on a different aspect in detail.
  3. Write regularly. Whether you write every other day or once a week, commit to a regular time to journal, then honour that commitment. But…
  4. Don’t overdo it. Evidence suggests writing occasionally (1-3 times per week) is more beneficial than daily journaling. That might be because we adapt to positive events and can soon become numb to them—that’s why it helps to savour surprises.

 

Try This 5-Minute Gratitude Meditation

Gratitude Practice: Savour The Moment

Savour the good. On days when gratitude feels difficult to find, tune into your senses. This meditation invites you to cultivate thankfulness by slowing down and noticing what you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. There doesn’t have to be anything special going on in order to practise gratitude—maybe it’s as simple as feeling grateful for your morning coffee, or for a good book. Explore this simple practice to appreciate the little things.

Use the breath to anchor yourself in the present moment. Our minds are always so easily pulled to busyness. Bring particular attention to feeling the breath, or something in the body, as you bring your shoulders down and orient your attention toward gratitude.

Next, bring to mind a sight you are grateful for. Move through your senses, and find one thing to start with that you appreciate that comes to you from the world of sight, if you have this available. It could be a colour…a shadow…a shape…a movement. Remember, it will never be like this again. What do you see right now, and can you feel grateful that you get to see this, whatever it is? Now, shift to a scent you appreciate. As you continue to work with your senses, now take time to tune in with appreciation to an aroma. What do you notice? What about that glorious or interesting or subtle smell is making you smile? It could be gratitude for something familiar: a scent that brings comfort, upliftment; or maybe it’s something you’ve never smelled before, and it just piques your curiosity, ignites you, enlivens you. Moving on, tune into any sounds around you. Allowing the world of smell to gently recede into the background, on an in-breath, shift your attention to your ears and the world of sound. Maybe notice what it feels like to really listen. How many sounds can you notice, and can you feel grateful that you’re able to experience sound, if you are? What can you notice about these sounds—far away? close? Perhaps you could play a piece of music that brings you joy, and have gratitude that it’s so available? Or maybe it’s the sound of children laughing, the sound of loved ones breathing, the sound of the beating of your own heart. The world of touch and texture beckons us next. We find so much to be grateful for in touch! If there’s someone near who you can hug or who can hug you, notice how this makes you feel filled with gratitude for the joy of human contact. Or perhaps you have a beautiful pet that you can stroke and cuddle, or some lovely material with a texture that feels warm to the touch, soft, evocative. Let your senses ignite your gratitude! There’s so much to be appreciative of. Shift to noticing and appreciating objects around you. Now take a moment to look around: Look down, look up, and from side to side. Appreciate how much effort must have gone into anything at all you own or use. Someone conceived of the need and many people worked on the details of the design. Much care even went into the packaging to deliver your item to you safely. What do you feel when you let yourself be grateful that all that talent went into making your life a little easier? As you end this practice, carry this attitude of gratitude with you. One last little grateful tip: Why not offer your thanks to each person who does anything at all for you today? Even if it is their job to help you? When you’re grateful, when you let your heart open up and be filled with appreciation, notice how being grateful makes you feel. Close with gratitude. I’m so grateful that you tuned in to this gratitude practice, and I appreciate your time, your effort, and your energy to be present, awake, and alive to your precious life. Have a beautiful day.

 

Gratitude and the Brain

4 Ways to Train Your Brain to Practice More Gratitude

  1. Take time to notice what’s around you: Practising mindfulness helps you tune in to the present moment. It is possible that if you are a grateful person, you are more mindful of others’ gestures. The more often you tune into your awareness, the greater the chances you will notice all the good that’s around you to feel gratitude for, which can then bring satisfaction and happiness.   Our ability to pick up on the beauty of nature, kindness from one another, the chance to make a living via a job, all require our ability to be cognizant of ourselves and our surroundings. Being mindful of help in the kitchen, or the color of the sky allows us to generate gratitude by simply noticing them.

 

  1. Practice gratitude for the little things: We often remember to be grateful for big events, like graduating from university or getting married, but it can be more difficult to feel grateful for the small things we do every day. Reminding yourself that eating a meal, for example, is in itself special can be very powerful.  Your immediate awareness of the food in front of you, combining flavors while removing hunger, is a great way to enjoy gratitude as often as you eat! Another example is feeling grateful in the morning for being able to comfortably sleep at night. We gain comfort, satisfaction and peace by practicing mindfulness and gratitude in this repeated fashion.   

 

  1. Share your gratitude for your loved ones: Most of us are a little bit guilty of taking our loved ones for granted. The next time you notice a kind act by a loved one, why not show gratitude by simply saying ‘thank you’ , or giving a hug? We ought to show appreciation and not let kind acts go unnoticed. Training yourself to show your gratefulness for loved ones can strengthen your relationships with others.

 

  1. Spread gratitude via your social media platforms: Social media can feel so negative at times, but using it to share your gratitude can help create a more positive online atmosphere. For example, share an uplifting moment from a recent event or a lesson you learned from a book you read, or a photo of a place near you that you’re grateful for. Spreading good, and in a unique and uplifting way, is one way we each can do our part in this digital age to remind each other that we have a lot to be grateful for.  Let us each inspire one another in this way. Training our minds to practice gratitude more often is possible if we are mindful of ourselves, each other and our environment. Let us widen our circle of appreciation. Please share your ideas for reminding yourself to be grateful.

 

Most Popular Gratitude Exercises and Activities

There are infinite ways to show our gratitude to others, to ourselves, and to a higher power or even “the universe” itself. However, it can be tough to get started without practical ideas. These gratitude exercises and activities are some of the most well-known and proven ways to practice and enhance your gratitude.

 

Journaling: Writing down a few things you are grateful for is one of the easiest and most popular exercises available. The purpose of the exercise is to reflect on the past day, few days, or week, and remember 3-5 things you are especially grateful for. In this way, you are focusing on all the good things that happened to you in a given set of time. What is the appropriate amount of journaling one should do per week? Some people propose doing it every day while others suggest once per week. The arguments against doing it every day are that it can be tedious and forced. It becomes a practice you feel you should do or need to do instead of something you want to do. When journaling becomes a banal task and not an enjoyable practice then you need to adjust the amount of journaling you do. Besides the benefit of focusing on the wonderful things, this practice actually can increase your quality of sleep, decrease symptoms of sickness, and increase joy. It is important to cater your practice to what you need. Perhaps journaling every day for a short amount of time works for you, but over time, it feels better to journal every Friday. Paying attention to what you are grateful for becomes easier as you practice it. Imagine your life without the things or people that matter to you, before you begin writing. That should definitely boost your gratitude barometer.

 

Gratitude Jar: The gratitude jar is a stunningly simple exercise that can have profound effects on your wellbeing and outlook. It only requires a few ingredients: a jar (a box can also work); a ribbon, stickers, glitter, or whatever else you like to decorate the jar; paper and a pen or pencil for writing your gratitude notes; and gratitude!

Step 1: Find a jar or box.

Step 2: Decorate the jar however you wish. You can tie a ribbon around the jar’s neck, put stickers on the sides, use clear glue and glitter to make it sparkle, paint it, keep it simple, or do whatever else you can think of to make it a pleasing sight.

Step 3: This is the most important step, which will be repeated every day. Think of at least three things throughout your day that you are grateful for. It can be something as benign as a coffee at your favorite place, or as grand as the love of your significant other or dear friend. Do this every day, write down what you are grateful for on little slips of paper and fill the jar.

Over time, you will find that you have a jar full of a myriad of reasons to be thankful for what you have and enjoy the life you are living. It also will cultivate a practice of expressing thanks. If you are ever feeling especially down and need a quick pick-me-up, take a few notes out of the jar to remind yourself of who, and what, is good in your life.

 

Gratitude Box

The gratitude box is a thoughtful way to share your feelings with loved ones and cultivate your own sense of gratitude. This is another easy activity that requires only a box, some paper, and a pen or pencil to write down gratitude messages. You can make the box yourself or buy one, the prettier the better! On the paper, write down a heartfelt message of gratitude to your loved one. If you’re not sure how to start, here are some suggestions to begin your message:

1) “Thank you for…”

2) “What I love about you…”

You can also collect messages from others about your loved one, to pack the box with multiple messages of gratitude and love. Place the message(s) into the box, wrap it up or put a bow on it, and give it to your loved one as a special gift, to both your loved one and yourself.

 

Gratitude Prompts: Gratitude prompts are a great way to get started, continue your practice, or kick-start a stalled gratitude practice. This is also a relatively simple exercise, with only one instruction: fill in the blank! These prompts provide several ways to begin a gratitude statement, with infinite possibilities for completion. They cover multiple senses, colors, people, and things. The goal is to identify at least three things in each category that you are thankful for.

The prompts include:

I’m grateful for three things I hear:

I’m grateful for three things I see:

I’m grateful for three things I smell:

I’m grateful for three things I touch/feel:

I’m grateful for these three things I taste:

I’m grateful for these three blue things:

I’m grateful for these three animals/birds:

I’m grateful for these three friends:

I’m grateful for these three teachers:

I’m grateful for these three family members:

I’m grateful for these three things in my home:

I’m grateful for these three people who hired me:

 

Gratitude walk: This exercise only requires your sense of gratitude and a pair of feet or wheelchair. When you are going through a particularly rough time, try cleansing your mind with a gratitude walk. Just as the combination of meditation and gratitude can combat stress or increase feelings of wellbeing, walking with a gratitude focal point can offer the same remedy. Walking is therapeutic in itself. It has health benefits like increased endorphins that decrease stress, increased heart health, and circulation in the body, decreased lethargy, and decreases in blood pressure. Couple this activity with a grateful state of mind and you are bound to nurture a positive mind and body. The goal of the gratitude walk is to observe the things you see around you as you walk. Take it all in. Be aware of nature, the colours of the trees, the sounds the birds make, and the smell of the plants. Notice how your feet feel when you step onto the ground. 

 

Gratitude Reflection

Reflection is an important part of mindfulness meditation and the cultivation of a sense of self-awareness. These practices can lead to an enhanced sense of wellbeing, among other benefits, although enhanced wellbeing is enough of a benefit for most of us. To practice gratitude reflection, follow these steps: Settle yourself in a relaxed posture. Take a few deep, calming breaths to relax and center. Let your awareness move to your immediate environment: all the things you can smell, taste, touch, see, hear. Say to yourself: “For this, I am grateful.” Next, bring to mind those people in your life to whom you are close: your friends, family, partner…. Say to yourself, “For this, I am grateful.”

Next, turn your attention onto yourself: you are a unique individual, blessed with imagination, the ability to communicate, to learn from the past and plan for the future, to overcome any pain you may be experiencing. Say to yourself: “For this, I am grateful.” Finally, rest in the realization that life is a precious gift. That you have been born into a period of immense prosperity, that you have the gift of health, culture, and access to spiritual teachings. Say to yourself: “For this, I am grateful.”

 

Gratitude Letter or Email / Gratitude Visit

This might be the most powerful gratitude exercise. Write a hand-written letter to a person you are particularly grateful to have in your life. Be detailed. Express all the wonderful qualities about this person, and how they personally have affected your life for the better. If you have the time personally deliver this letter to the person yourself. Do it unexpectedly. Your level of gratitude should skyrocket, as you observe the bliss the receiver gets from your generous act. It will probably be one of the greatest gifts you will ever receive. If you wish to increase your gratitude and happiness levels then intentionally script letters to inspiring people in your life. If you are feeling down and maybe even depressed, you should most certainly give this practice a try. For an even further joy boost hand deliver your letter to the receivers so you can witness the receiver’s reactions for yourself. This activity can be either an email or a letter which you can send off in the mail or deliver personally. Think about a person who has recently done something good for you, to whom you have not yet expressed your gratitude. This person may be a friend, family member, coworker, teacher, or mentor. Try to pick someone who you can visit within the next week if you are practicing the visit component. Next, write them an email or letter. Use these guidelines to write an effective and grateful letter: Write as though you are addressing the person directly. Don’t worry about getting your grammar or spelling perfect (unless you are sending the email/letter to them).

Describe what this person has done that makes you grateful, and how they have impacted your life. Be as concrete as possible here. Describe what you are doing in life now, and how frequently you remember their act of kindness or generosity. Try to keep your letter to about 300 words or so. If you are writing an email or a letter to be mailed, go through the letter to make sure it is clear and you get the intended message across. Hit the “send” button or drop it in a mailbox. If you are delivering your letter in person via a gratitude visit, follow these steps: Plan a visit with the recipient. Let him or her know you would like to meet with them to share something, but be vague about what you have to share. When you meet this person, let them know that you are grateful and that you would like to read them a letter you wrote expressing your gratitude. Ask that he or she does not interrupt you until you are done reading the letter. Take your time reading the letter. While you read, pay attention to the reactions of both you and the recipient. After you have read the letter, listen to his or her reaction to the letter and be ready to discuss your feelings together. Remember to leave the letter with this person when you leave. If you are located far away from this person, you can arrange a phone call or video chat instead.

 

Meditation

Gratitude meditations are a double-whammy for wellbeing. You are performing two of the most impactful happiness practices at the same time. Meditation isn’t always easy especially when the mind is aggressively wandering and distracting your attention, but if you practise this kind of mediation consistently be prepared to experience incredible upgrades in gratitude and joy. Unlike a normal meditation where you intentionally become aware of your breath and keep your mind clear, during a gratitude meditation you visualize all the things in your life that you are grateful for. It is important to give each person or item the concentration it deserves. You can take the time to go through all the people you are grateful for or all the physical objects you are grateful for. I like to simplify this sometimes and show gratitude for the things that are often taken for granted: the ability to breath, hands to touch, eyes to see, legs to walk and run, etc. There are numerous advantages to meditating. These advantages magnify when you take the time to target your reasons for gratitude. Spend some time really taking stock of the things you are grateful for and I am certain you will feel much better afterward. It is a powerful exercise.

 

Collage

This is similar to the gratitude journal, except you are going to take pictures of all the things you are grateful for. This gives you the opportunity to visualize your gratitude. Try taking a picture of one thing you are grateful for every day for a week. Notice how you feel. Take a look back at the pictures every week. You don’t have to find grandiose things to be grateful for. A simple picture of a flower will do. The more you do this the easier it will be for you to spot out the things you are grateful for. You will no longer take these simple things for granted. Perhaps you will document multiple pictures in a day. After a given time period put all your pictures together in a collage and simply be grateful for all that you have

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