t’s November again which means celebrating Thanksgiving and finding ways to express your gratitude. We use the word gratitude a lot to remind us about humility and being thankful for all that we have. The belief is that if we practice gratitude, we’ll attract even more abundance which leads to more joy. Much like anything, being in the practice of gratitude takes consistency because our natural tendency is to concentrate on things we don’t have. So, while our thoughts gravitate to thankfulness around the time of Thanksgiving, it’s important to think about this during all times of the year.
While you’re reading this and thinking about gratitude, consider how you can add these daily practices to your life.
Write it down. Maybe you’ve heard before about writing down what you’re grateful for. If you do this in the morning before you start the rest of your day, it sets the tone for everything else that happens that day. This step helps you manage a situation and attract more positive people to you in the process.
Appreciate those in your life. If you’ve had certain relationships for a long time (like with parents, siblings, or best friends), it’s easy to take these for granted. We all do this from time to time, but the key to paying more attention to these people is gratitude. So, make an effort to appreciate these relationships. Choose up to three people and show them your appreciation. This could be verbal or even by email, text, or a good old-fashioned handwritten note.
Choose a moment during the day to be consciously grateful. Sometime during the course of your day, make the choice to be grateful for everything around you like the new comfy office chair your company bought you that you’re sitting in, the air conditioning cooling the room, that your best friend met you for lunch, the pretty view our your window, etc. You can even attempt to turn normally negative situations into positive ones, such as being grateful your friends canceled your weekend plans so now you can rest and get much-needed sleep.
Carry a reminder with you. When you carry a token of gratitude around with you, it gives you a physical object you can focus on that draws you back into a general state of thankfulness. This might be a crystal stone of some kind, a shell your child found and gave to you from your last trip to the ocean, or a coin you picked up from the ground for luck. What this is really about is being able to reach into your pocket and pull out something tangible that snaps you back into gratitude by taking a breath and reflecting on all that you have.
Don’t forget the small things. Sometimes, we don’t really realize just how much we have in our lives. When things are busy and the pressures are great, it’s easy to fall into focusing on everything that is a burden. The list of these things is endless: clean water, good health, internet access and smartphones, shelter, a working automobile. Stop and celebrate these basic conveniences you have.⠀⠀⠀
Don’t forget you. While you’re busy appreciating others and the basics of life you enjoy, don’t forget to appreciate yourself. Acknowledge your own great qualities and what you’ve been able to accomplish in life. Think about everything you’ve overcome. One way you could do this is to stop for a second while looking in the mirror at the end of your day. Look at yourself and acknowledge several things you accomplished that day. This exercise and the eye contact you make with yourself solidifies your appreciation which leads to gratitude and improvement in your self-esteem.
At the end of the day, gratitude is a practice. Once you do this on a regular basis, it gets easier and easier to see all there is to be grateful for in your life. This gratitude will most certainly be a catalyst for drawing more great things into your life to be even more grateful for. Think about this with your family this holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving!
