The Simple Gratitude Practice You can Do Today
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
Practicing gratitude is a journey. It’s not simple. At least not every day. Some days I don’t want to think about things or people I’m grateful. Some days I want to think about everything I don’t like or don’t want or I’m not grateful for.
But eventually, after thinking about everything that I don’t want or I’m not grateful for or confused by, I find myself making my way back to looking for gratitude.
I wrote a more indepth post on gratitude you can read here. There I share what gratitude isn’t, why it’s important, and tangible ways you can start practicing gratitude.
Today, I want to share what I’ve been doing that has helped me be more intentional when it comes to thinking about gratitude.
Gratitude Practice
Describe Today in 3 words or sentences:
For this part, I focus on the feelings of today. Whether I felt like crap or I felt positive, I write them down. This part allows me to be honest and open to myself.
Through this activity, I’m intentionally focusing on the different emotions I’ve felt that day. I still do this part even if the particular day was not a good day, I’d write today I felt heavy, reminded of the past, broken. This first activity is all about honest emotions.
If I’m doing this in the morning, I write 3 things that I want to feel today. For example, I’d write today is productive, today I have peace, today I’m full of ideas.
If I’m doing this at night, I focus on 3 things that happened today that made me feel good feelings. For example, I’d write today I felt accomplished finishing 2 blog posts, full of peace, full of excitement.
3 Things I’m grateful for today:
For this part, I focus on 3 things or people I’m grateful for. This is different from the first section because this one I’m not focusing on my feelings, I’m focusing on other things. Because even on an emotionally overwhelming day, I can still find things to be grateful for.
So this part, focus on 3 external things that you just appreciate or you’re glad you have or you’re glad it happened.
My 1 win today/The 1 Good thing today:
For this part, I focus on the 1 good thing that happened that day. This part requires more thought because it’s not as simple as 3 things I’m grateful for. This part requires me to think about the entirety of the day (or the last 24 hours), and think about just 1 thing that was a win or just made me feel appreciated or like I’m heading the right direction or that was just what I needed that I didn’t know I needed.
This part can be as simple as waking up today, but it can also be something grand like having coffee with Michelle Obama. (I never did, but you know).
Today these things made me feel:
For this part, I think through everything I’ve written down, I reflect, and I write what all the things I’ve written down made me feel.
I do this at the very end because even on a bad day after I’ve written 3 things I’m grateful for and the 1 win today, I feel like today wasn’t as bad as I initially thought.
This part just helps me to see things from a different perspective.
And those are the things I think through on a daily basis (or I try to think through on a daily basis) to help me practice gratitude.
This practice has helped me to be more honest about my feelings, allow me to see/think about things I should be grateful for, the 1 win that I may not have thought about, and finally see that even on bad days, I can reflect and see the good.
You can do this practice to! I highly encourage you to try it. I have a journal that I write in everyday.
I hope this was helpful for you. I know everyone does gratitude practices differently, but I’ve found this tactic the most helpful for me. I’m like to reflect, I’m able to be honest about my feelings and also focus on things I’m grateful for. This practice just embodies everything I do.
If you’re looking to practice gratitude, try out this practice! Thank you for reading. I hope you’re blessed by the practice! If you use other tactics, share them below!
~ Sincerely, Mainou
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