Practicing gratitude can really make an impact on your life. One easy way to get started practicing gratitude is to make it a habit to count your blessings both morning and night. Some people like to keep a gratitude journal to create a daily habit. You don’t have to write them down if you don’t want to or if that seems too overwhelming. Simply taking a few minutes when you wake up in the morning and before going to bed is enough to create a daily habit. Before long, you will easily recognize how many blessings abound in your life. Here are some tips to help you begin.
Start Small
When you want to create a habit, easing into it is often the best approach. When you make it easy on yourself, you’re more inclined to move forward and stay motivated. In other words, try not to put too much pressure on yourself to come up with the grandest examples of gratitude when you are just starting out. You can also do repeats. Start out by appreciating your home, the bed you sleep in, the food you ate for dinner. Sometimes recognizing even a tiny blessing in your life can have a big impact on your life.
Make Gratitude Part Of Your Daily Routine
A helpful method to remembering your new gratitude routine is to add it to your existing routine. Whatever you normally do in the morning and at night, be sure to take a few moments to think about what makes you feel fortunate. A perfect example is to do this while brushing your teeth. If you like to drink tea or coffee in the morning, remember to count your blessings during that time. In fact, that delicious tea or coffee time sounds like a blessing you can count for that morning!
Create Visual Reminders
If you still find yourself forgetting to do your new gratitude habit, add some visual reminders to your home. Post-it notes are a great resource to use. You can stick them anywhere, such as on your nightstand next to your bed, your coffee pot, refrigerator, or bathroom mirror. Technology comes in handy as well! Set an alert on your phone to remind you, if that’s helpful.
Put A Positive Spin On Your Challenges
Perhaps you wake up and don’t feel the blessings in your life. For example, you woke up with a sore back and don’t feel like getting out of bed. Make a decision to look at your challenges for what they are, but find the blessing in them. You can choose to be grateful that, despite your back pain, you are in overall good health. And that’s a wonderful blessing to count every day!
Take Notes Through The Day
Another good habit is to write things down throughout your day when you find something to be thankful for. It only takes a few seconds to write them down. You can even write them in your smartphone notes app. What a wonderful idea! When you start to feel down, pull out your phone and read your list of blessings. It can do wonders for your outlook!
At night, when you are ready to count your blessings for the day, you can reflect on some of the blessings you noticed throughout the day. You don’t have to constantly think of new blessings every morning and every night.
The Habit Of Practicing Gratitude
Now that you have created a new habit of practicing gratitude every morning and every night, how does this make you feel? Has it shifted your mindset to a more positive one? How has this practice of counting your blessings impacted your life?