How Daily Gratitude Transformed my Life
Gratitude. An eight letter word that holds the capability to transform the life you live. A practice of universal appreciation that welcomes blessings and abundance into your life. One of the many positive practices people choose to incorporate in their daily routines. However, let's back up a bit and talk about how I learned about the power of gratitude.
A few years ago, something called “The Five Minute Journal” picked up crazy popularity on social media. It was a guided journal with very simple prompts that were to be completed in the morning as soon as you woke up, and the last thing at night before you fell asleep. Naturally, I wanted to see what it was all about and ended up purchasing one. After completing that one, I’ve since bought two more and have used it almost everyday the past two years. Here are three of my main takeaways:
1. The way you start your day plants a seed for how it turns out
On each page, the morning starts with a quote to bounce the rest of your day off. Some are longer than others, more thought provoking, but they all set you up for a day of success. I never realized how impactful it is to start each day with intent. Nobody wakes up every single day and wants to have the best day yet, sometimes it takes extra motivation. Having moments of intent throughout the beginning of my day always increases my productivity, boosts my mood and keeps me energized throughout the day. Plus, when I'm not feeling motivated, I just think back to the intention I had set earlier and let it fuel the rest of my day. Having a focal point of each day and acting on it makes your goals easier to achieve.
2. It is so easy to find the silver lining.
Following each quote is the famous question; “List 3 things you are thankful for”. As I completed this journal more consistently, I started appreciating the smallest of things. “Clean water, a healthy body, working wifi, heat.” All things I had previously taken for granted. As time went on my list of gratitude got simpler and simpler, I had begun to find the silver lining in everything, including life outside my journal. I saw everything as a gift and in turn got once-in-a-lifetime opportunities I had never even thought about before. Shifting my overall gratitude of life around me helped me see the countless blessings (big or small) that I had been overlooking daily.
3. Consistency retrains your brain
Although filling this journal out twice a day everyday isn’t a huge task, when I was starting out it definitely wasn’t a priority. I often forgot, or got lazy and just wouldn’t get myself to do it. However, the results once I started were immediate. Writing down things I was grateful for everyday automatically shifted my mindset to function like this all the time. The more I did it, the more my brain started to get retrained to look for the silver lining. I was essentially manipulating my brain to look over the negatives and focus on things I could and should always be grateful for.
Focusing on gratitude has helped me majorly these past two years because I have been through some big changes. Graduating high school, moving states, going to college, has been a lot in a short period of time. But keeping myself grounded and using gratitude to do so, has kept my mind calm, kept me positive and helped me lead my life with daily intent. Incorporating just five minutes of daily gratitude is enough to transform your life, day-by-day.
*If anyone's interested - Link to the journal : https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Change-Mindfulness-Reflection-Affirmations/dp/0991846206/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?hvadid=409971111539&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9001875&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1819413296343813010&hvtargid=kwd-60422792161&hydadcr=22538_11318434&keywords=five+minute+journal&qid=1689603858&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1