Creating a Habit of Gratitude
We were visiting family, about to have a delicious dinner that apparently, was not our young nephew’s favorite.
Cheeseburger Salad.
(What’s not to like?)
I am not sure if his mom asked him to say the prayer for our meal because she knew he would need a little extra help finding gratitude for it, or if it was just his turn to pray.
He said a prayer I will never forget.
“Dear God, Thank You for this cheeseburger salad, and I hope we never, EVER have to eat it again. Amen.”
It was really hard to keep a straight face.
Gratitude.
It may not feel super-effective when it is forced, but sometimes we have to force it so that we can get into the habit of being grateful. This is a quality that successfully increases with a fake it ‘til you make it approach.
I wrote about internal resources that impact resilience last month. I only gave gratitude a brief mention under the umbrella of optimism, but it deserves its own post.
Researchers have found that gratitude usually (but not always) contributes to well-being, life satisfaction, and even better sleep! (1)
We hear a lot about gratitude during the month of November, but it is really a practice that can be helpful all year round.
Some practices I write about are simple, but not easy.
This one is simple and easy!
Ways to Incorporate Gratitude
Individually
Many strategies to incorporate gratitude involve keeping a journal of some type.
I am a big fan of writing things down. Personally, it feels like things just sink in more for me when I write instead of type, but I know there are people who will never do it if they have to write. There are additional modalities to express gratitude as well.
Keep a gratitude journal
This is probably the one everyone thinks of, and you can probably find journals set up for this exact purpose online. This simply involves keeping a journal of things you are grateful for.
You can write things in bullet-point form, or be more descriptive by saying why you are thankful for that thing.
If you are an artsy-type, you might want to take your time and write out the letters using pretty pens and fonts.
You might want to take pictures and keep a journal of sorts on your phone.
Ann Voskamp wrote a beautiful book about her experience keeping a gratitude journal if you are looking for some inspiration to start a gratitude journal.
Start journal entries with gratitude
I journaled to 1,000 things when I read Ann Voskamp’s book, but after that I shifted to starting my daily journal by listing 5 things I am grateful for. Sometimes I do get a little stuck because I put pressure on myself to get creative with this – like it’s not going to be good enough if I say the same things all the time. (That is the recovering perfectionist part of me talking!). I do try to stretch my brain and choose things that are relevant to that day – if I had an especially fun time with one of my kids recently, I’ll say that. If my dog did something that made me laugh out loud, then Teddy gets a mention. Sometimes I will write something specifically to counteract my own negative thoughts. If I am worried about something, I may write, “God is in control of my life.”
Write it on your calendar
Maybe you are not a journaler, but you have some type of system you look at every day. Maybe you jot one thing you are grateful for in your calendar on the daily.
Use the lock-screen of your phone
Speaking of things you use daily, maybe you create a lock-screen that will prompt you to name something you are grateful for.
Use an app
I have not used apps for gratitude personally, so I do not have any to recommend, but I know they exist. Of course there’s an app for that!
Prayer
If you are a believer, maybe you offer a regular prayer of thanksgiving before meals. There is no reason you would need to limit that prayer to just food. Maybe take some time to add a couple sentences about other things you are thankful for.
Gratitude is a habit, so you might want to use some habit hacks to get started.
Find a way to make it as easy to do as possible. You do not need fancy or expensive supplies, you do not need a big chunk of time, you do not need to worry about your grammar or spelling or handwriting. You don’t need to wait until Monday, or the first of the month. Just get started!
Maybe you can pair your gratitude habit with something else you do regularly. (That is really how my 5-things-in-the-journal method got started. I already had a journaling habit, and I just added the gratitude into my process.) Maybe you think about things you are thankful for as you are brushing your teeth before bed. Or you say them out loud during stoplights when you are by yourself in the car.
Think about what you need in order to make it accessible, and make it regular. It doesn’t need to be daily, so make sure you don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day!
With Others
Gratitude is great as an individual discipline, but it is something you can do with others, too.
If you want to start instilling gratitude as a habit in your children, or if you are aware that you are someone who is breaking generational cycles in your family, you may want to incorporate some of these ideas.
Incorporate gratitude into meals
I already mentioned saying a prayer before dinner (especially if you are having cheeseburger salad), but you can also use gratitude as a conversation starter. We used to share our highs and lows around the dinner table. The highs are things we are grateful for. I think it is a common practice to go around the table at thanksgiving and say what we are grateful for, but this could be something you do more than once a year.
Find a theme
Usually at this time of year we see something circulating on pinterest where people at a Thanksgiving dinner write something they are thankful for on a pumpkin. Or you get a pumpkin and write your gratitude daily in the month of November. Again, this doesn’t need to be a November-only thing. Maybe you find other themed ways to express gratitude. Maybe you have a big heart taped to the wall during February, or at Christmas, you wrap a box with white paper and write things you are grateful for in red and green. There is room to get creative here.
Post-it’s on a wall
Our family did this one year when we all went on a vacation together. We had 26 people in one house that week! As the week went on, we all added post-it’s to the wall to say things we were thankful for.
Give gratitude as a gift
Sometimes it’s not a collective effort, but you can find ways to express gratitude to someone else. Appreciation is something I tend to focus on when I have worked with couples. When we appreciate someone, we have to put ourselves in their shoes and recognize the things they do that often go unnoticed.
When my kids were younger, we had a little picture frame that travelled through the house. This was more of an “I love you because….” message, but it would work with gratitude. You could put a paper under the glass that says “I am grateful for you because…” and then use a dry erase marker to write in something specific about that person. Then, you leave it someplace where the person will find it, and then it’s their turn to write something to someone else.
You can also keep a gratitude journal devoted to someone specific. I did this during a difficult time in my marriage. I wrote some reason I was thankful for him every day for a year and then gave it to him as an anniversary gift the following year.
I hope this post has sparked some ideas about practical ways you can incorporate gratitude into your mindset all year – not just during the month of November.
When you start working on gratitude it becomes easier to find things to be grateful for.
Our brains naturally scans for threats, things that may hurt us. This hypervigilance becomes habitual, and it can be easy to jump to catastrophic conclusions. When we practice gratitude, it’s like we are training our brains to look for the good.
If you want additional help changing the patterns in your brain, that is what I am here for! Please call me at 717-219-4339 or reach out on my website.
References
(1) Sansone RA, Sansone LA. Gratitude and well being: the benefits of appreciation. Psychiatry (Edgmont). 2010 Nov;7(11):18-22. PMID: 21191529; PMCID: PMC3010965.
(2) Voskamp, A. (2011) One thousand gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are. Zondervan.
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
