In this post: What gratitude is, how a gratitude practice can make you happier, tips on starting a gratitude practice of your own, join in our 30-day gratitude challenge.
If you’ve done any research into personal development practices or ways to be happier, you have probably come across recommendations to create a gratitude practice. But… If you are already grateful for the things you have in your life but don’t feel any happier, it can be confusing to know exactly what you are supposed to do differently.
It is something that I struggled with in my battle with severe depression. I knew I was incredibly lucky with so much goodness in my life, but it was a double-edged sword for me. Acknowledging just how fortunate I was made me feel miserable for those who weren’t so lucky.
Nowadays, I let myself feel the gratitude for all of have and then use these feelings of love and happiness to fuel me to help others who aren’t so fortunate.
So what exactly is gratitude?
For me, gratitude is a deep sense of appreciation for what I have in my life, both where I am physically with my situation and health, and also what I experience day-to-day, such as kindness and cherished moments.
Dictionary.com defines gratitude as “warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received” and while I find this definition a little limited in its’ scope, I like how it reflects the feelings I get when I really soak in my gratitude – all warm and fuzzy!
I think how you feel gratitude is an individual thing, but the act of practising gratitude in your life has benefits for everybody.
Benefits of practising gratitude
They are a wealth of benefits of practising gratitude, so I’m just going to point out 5 big ones:
1. It makes you feel good
Just the act of experiencing gratitude to its’ fullest can make you feel good.
Like I mentioned before, I feel all warm and fuzzy, and I have heard from others that it has them feeling great too. Who doesn’t want more of those types of feelings?!!
It also creates feelings of love for ourselves and others as we appreciation the things we treasure about life.
2. It shifts your focus to the good things in your life and builds a more positive perspective
Often, we get caught up in a cycle of focusing on everything bad in our lives. Spending all our time wishing things were different or better and bitching about bad situations we are experiencing. (Marketing companies love this type of behaviour because then they can tell you that you need their products to ‘fix’ your life.)
A gratitude practice makes you consciously shift yourself away from these types of thoughts to more positive thoughts – thinking about the good things you have in your life (which we often overlook when we don’t have a gratitude practice) and seeing things from a new perspective.
3. It reduces stress
Life is hectic and this can cause a lot of us to have high-stress levels. If we don’t have any habits for managing this stress, things can often spiral out of control and contribute to any mental health issues we may be experiencing.
We can use our gratitude practice to break this cycle and give ourselves a break from stressful thoughts. Because we are making a conscious shift in our thoughts (as mentioned above), we are changing our focus from negative, stressful situations to the goodness in our lives.
4. It raises your energy
You might not believe in spirituality or the Law of Attraction (I am still learning about these myself), but you can’t deny that what mood people are in affects the energy that they give out.
It might be hard to pick up on it if you are in a bad place yourself (hello, depression!), but different moods definitely generate different vibes.
Someone who is negative all the time has a low-energy vibe and, if you are not careful, you can actually feel your energy draining away just being around them.
On the flip side, someone who is positive all the time has a high-energy vibe and they are likely to be more buoyant and happy, which again you can sense and use to boost your own energy levels if you are in the right headspace.
Being grateful, and showing gratitude, also raises your own energy levels and you might see people responding to this in a positive way. As you strengthen your gratitude practice, you might find yourself being able to harness these higher energy levels to spread more goodness throughout other people’s lives as well.
5. It makes you happier
All of the previous points combine to help to make you feel happier.
A regular gratitude practice will see you feeling good in yourself, becoming more positive, give you time out from any stresses in your life, and raising your energy levels and boost your mood.
These are some of the key factors to growing your happiness and living a more fulfilling, meaningful life.
Tips on starting a gratitude practice
A gratitude practice can be done many ways, but it’s going to be most effective if you choose something that you can do every single day. This will make it more likely to become a habit and you will get ongoing benefits from practising gratitude daily.
It can be helpful to use a printed habit tracker (grab one here – no opt-in required) or a habit tracker app, such as Done or Habit Hub. The visual aspect of a habit tracker can give you extra motivation to keep up the good work.
Some examples of ways to start a gratitude practice are:
- As part of your morning routine – note down at least 3 things you are grateful for that day and then reread or say out loud to really feel the gratitude vibes.
- As part of your night routine – note down your top 3 moments of the day and again, reread over or say out loud to let your appreciation soak in.
- During your day – if you feel particularly grateful to someone or for something happening, show your gratitude by saying a heartfelt thank you or showing your appreciation in some other way (eg. write a letter for the person you are thankful for or write a note to put in a ‘Gratitude Jar’ to refer back to and remind yourself of a special moment.)
- Join in the FREE Proud Happy Brave 30-day Gratitude Challenge! Learn more about this below 🙂
Join in the Proud Happy Brave 30-day Gratitude Challenge
I’ve created a FREE 30-day Gratitude Challenge so that we can explore what gratitude means for us, what we are grateful for in our lives and to really cement a gratitude practice as a daily habit in our lives.
After the 30-day challenge, we will have heaps of ideas on how to include gratitude in our lives to live a happier life where we are more positive, less stressed and ultimately more fulfilled in our lives.
What will be included in the challenge?
- Daily prompts to get you thinking and taking action to show your gratitude
- A workbook to complete along the way
- A daily video where I share my thoughts on each day’s prompt.
To join this challenge, click here!
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I hope this post has shown you why it is worthwhile to create a gratitude practice and given you some ideas to start your own.
Let me know, how would you like to show gratitude in your day?
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