I didn't want to write some "feel good" gratitude blog, but instead, I wrote something that will actually lead you to take action on starting daily gratitude and living your best life.
I do share the benefits of gratitude and how it will make you feel better day to day. But I also had to touch on some points of how it will cause pain in your life. I did this because most people like to read blogs that make them feel good (I love it to), but those blogs never get me to make a positive change in my life because they don't touch on the pain of not taking action, which is what really gets people to change their lives.
So please read over this and take action today. My daily gratitude takes about 1 minute per night before bed. This is one of the easier habits to start, but just because its easy doesn't mean it isn't important. This one habit has been what has caused me to see more good in my life and the world. So lets jump right into how gratitude will make your life better!
Over the past 6 months I have been consistently practicing daily gratitude every single night before bed, with the exception of some days here and there where I forgot to log my gratitude for the day, or didn't have a sheet of paper to write down 3 things I was grateful during that day.
Although I have practiced this in the past, I found myself not staying consistent until the past 6 months or so. But after staying consistent for the past 6 months, I wanted to share 5 benefits that I have noticed in my own life by practicing daily gratitude.
I hope that these 5 benefits will be an influence to you to start a daily gratitude journal of your own!
1. It becomes easier to focus on the good throughout your day.
In today's world it is easy for us to constantly focus on the negative. We are constantly fed fear mongering news which gets us focused on the negative in the world all the time. Maybe you are also surrounded by people that constantly complain about how much their life "sucks".
When you start to practice daily gratitude, you will noticed that you don't resonate with their negativity anymore, or if you do, you'll put dramatically less focus on the negative. In fact instead of noticing all the "bad" that the news shoves down your throat, you will notice that the world is actually mostly filled with good.
2. You go to sleep in a positive state of mind.
How many nights have you ended up going to sleep pissed of or dragged down from the day you had? Don't worry it happens to everyone, we all have bad days. But we don't need to always go to bed feeling this way after having a bad day.
By writing out 3 things you are grateful for about your day right before you go to bed, you will be switching your minds focus to the good things that happened throughout your day. This has probably been the biggest benefit that I have noticed from practicing gratitude before bed on a daily basis.
Before I started doing this I would notice that I would go to sleep holding on to all the negative thoughts that I had throughout the day. My focus was in the wrong place. I also have noticed that by focusing on the good before bed, that you will wake up the next morning in a better mood (most of the time) than you are used to waking up in (this is just my personal experience, it may be different for you).
3. You are able to enjoy the moment more often.
Daily gratitude has also helped me realize that every moment we have is precious. The problem is that when we don't practice gratitude we never really get to enjoy the moments of our lives as much as we could if we were to practice gratitude.
Gratitude helps you to focus on smaller moments you might not otherwise think of. Think of right now if you were sitting at a table in a 5 start restaurant eating a perfectly prepared steak dinner. You would probably eat the dinner slowly and savor each and every bite of the steak. But how often do you do this when you are eating some cheap food or fast food? My guess is that you never savor each and every bite.
And I'm not saying that when you practice gratitude on a daily basis that every meal will feel like eating a steak at a 5 start restaurant. But you will be able to enjoy what you are doing in the moment more often than you would before.
4. You take less for granted.
We have so much going for us in our lives, but most of us don't even take the time to realize this. We usually feel a lack in our lives. Whether that is you don't have the best car, food, house or whatever it may be. Now don't get me wrong I am striving for a better life and I love luxuries such as a nice car, house or some good food. Go for the things that you want in life, there is nothing wrong with that!
The problem comes when we aren't grateful for what we currently have. We start to think that what we have isn't enough. We are so focused on complaining about the things we have right now, but how often do you think to yourself "you know what I am grateful for the car/house/phone/shoes that I have".
Imagine how much better you would feel if you were grateful for the things you have in life right now.
Practicing daily gratitude has helped me to focus on how much I actually already have more often.
5. You will notice most of what you used to focus on was useless.
I actually really noticed myself complaining a couple of weeks ago. I was leaving Florida and driving back up to Michigan. If you know me you know that I despise cold and cloudy days, and I was starting to feel triggered. In fact this feeling lasted for a couple of days after I arrived back home. I noticed myself complaining all day about being back in Michigan. Although half of my complaints were me just joking, the other half were real complaints, I spent so much time thinking about how "bad" it is to be back in Michigan.
After a couple of days I snapped out of it. Part of it was my dad telling me to look at a few reasons to be happy to be back in Michigan, the other part was that I realized that if I wasn't grateful throughout my day (or at least at night) that this cycle would continue and soon be out of control.
One small thing that I remember being grateful for was that the Whole Foods close to where I live in Michigan sells the best açaí bowls that I have ever had in my life. None of the Whole Foods in Florida sell them, so you bet I was happy to get back to this Whole Foods for my açaí bowl!
If you are reading this it is probably easy to realize how ridiculous my complaining was being back in Michigan. Maybe you are in the same boat but you don't even realize it (it is always easy to notice other peoples faults but never our own). From my experience above I can say that after being grateful to be back in Michigan my day to day mood has gotten better since those first couple of days.
If you are in a similar phase, practicing daily gratitude before bed is the easiest way to break the habit.
And soon after you will wonder why you spent so much time focusing on BS.
Closing thoughts.
I hope that reading the benefits of gratitude has influenced you to start keeping a daily gratitude journal of your own. I personally like to use the same page in my notebook that I write out the plan for my day on, but you may prefer to keep a separate journal just for your daily gratitude.
Let me know, how has keeping a gratitude journal impacted your life, what benefits have you noticed?
Live your life to the fullest,
Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment