Start a Gratitude Journal
A gratitude journal is a great way to keep yourself in a thankful and positive state of mind. This article will offer some tips for starting and keeping one.
Steps
- Be Thankful. Thankfulness is an attitude that you can practice and develop. Cultivating gratitude as the norm in your life will make keeping a gratitude journal much easier.
- Make it a rule to write down a certain number of things you are thankful for per day. Avoid repeating the same things. This will make writing in the journal more challenging as time goes on, but that's how your awareness and thankfulness will grow. You'll be challenging yourself to find new things to be thankful for that perhaps you never noticed before.
- Many people start by writing down basic material things that they are grateful for in their lives. It's easiest to recognize things that sustain your life here on Earth like your house, your bed, your clothes, your food etc. Be sure to explain how this makes you feel and why you're grateful for it.
- Example - I am grateful for my house. My house warms my body and shelters and protects me. It gives me a sense of relief knowing that there is always a comforting place to come back to.
- Write about extended material things in your life. These things vary from person to person depending on what you like and take interest in. For example, if you love to paint, you may be grateful for the paint that you have. Or, if you like music you may be grateful for your CD collections.
- Describe how you are grateful for yourself. You can start by feeling grateful to be alive at all. Then start writing about feeling grateful to have the body you have, even if you don't like everything. Avoid the trap of being grateful for something that is better than what other people have. Instead, compare whatever you are grateful for with how you would feel if you didn't have it at all.
- Think about your abilities. You may start with basic abilities like your ability to see, your ability to hear, your ability to walk. Then progress to the extended abilities that are unique to you. Think about skillful things like dancing, singing, writing, and features that make up your character like your listening skills, your skills in cheering up people, your skills in being a good friend.
- Consider the people in your life. Think about all the people you care about, like your parents, your friends, your significant other, your pets. Write why you are grateful for each person and how they make you feel. This helps you to appreciate them and see only the good in them. It's also good to write about the people that you don't really like and find a reason to appreciate them. This can be difficult as we don't really appreciate people we don't like but it can be very uplifting. There is good in everyone and it's very mood shifting to find the good in even people we dislike and feel grateful for them.
- Write about situations and experiences. There are always situations that have made us happy. For example, you may be grateful for a fun party, a good day at school/work, a fun vacation.
Tips
- This journal comes in handy to read when you're feeling down. It helps to shift your energy back to a positive vibe by reading about all you have to be grateful for.
- You don't have to write a lot about why you feel grateful for something, but it helps to shift your awareness to the emotions and feelings that you enjoy, bringing about more of those emotions.
- You can use a free digital gratitude journal to record your notes and photos online, or on your mobile device.
- Challenge yourself daily to come up with something new. Remember that even tiny things can have an effect, for example the light green color of young leaves in the spring that stand for hope and renewal.
- To remember to write in your journal keep it somewhere you're sure to see when you have the most time. For example, if after work you spend hours in front of the TV, keep your journal on the coffee table or ottoman. To keep it from being an eyesore, buy or decorate a journal to fit in with your decor so it never has to be put away somewhere and forgotten.
