Simple Gratitude Exercise

I wrote down about twenty-five things I’m grateful for earlier today. This exercise is something I think everyone should do periodically.

I suppose it may have had something to do with Mother’s Day around the margins, but it was really inspired by a wave of good fortune that has come my way lately. This week has gone well for me, so I just thought I needed to sit down and tabulate some of the things that are inspiring my thankfulness right now.

It’s very simple: what I did was write down a new thing to be grateful for on each line of a standard notebook-sized piece of paper.

If you do this yourself, it means you’ll end up with a list of more than two dozen separate things (or more) to feel grateful for--something to keep in mind the next time you feel downcast or down on your luck one way or another.

If you have dozens of different things to be grateful for, how bad can it really be?

Some people keep what they call a gratitude journal, which they write in daily or semi-daily in order to keep positivity top of mind. That’s fine by me; that’s probably a great habit. This simple exercise is the same idea, but much lengthier.

I like that--it stimulates the gratitude impulse that much more strongly when you do it, like lifting heavier weight on occasion. It’s more of a reflective activity than a quick journal entry for the day, which I imagine most people jot down before moving on.

It’s important to remember the ratio of 3:1 for positive things to negative things. In other words, you should try to intentionally think about compliments rather than criticisms (while still valuing worthwhile criticism). A lengthier exercise is good in this sense because it forces you to linger on what’s positive and builds the mental habit of doing so all the more.

It’s an exercise particularly appropriate for a Sunday afternoon. This is the most reflective day of the week for most Americans, in my opinion, and Sunday afternoon maybe even more so. That makes it ideal for sitting down with pen in hand and transcribing a record of what makes you remember that your life is better than you think.

It’s nice to think that I can pull these out at a future date and use it to remember what I was thinking and feeling today, and what decisions I’m making now. I can look at each such page as a snapshot of me in time.

Anyway, here’s my recommendation to you: try it! See what it does for you.