Gratitude and Ways to Feel More Grateful
By: Dilini Dharmawardana, MFTI
Sometimes gratitude comes easy and sometimes it takes a lot of work. Especially these days, finding gratitude and being able to be grateful is important. Finding ways to be more grateful can help us find happiness. Here are some tips to help you find gratitude:
Tip #1: Keep a Gratitude Journal
Keeping a gratitude journal means keeping a journal where you detail the things you are grateful for. Sometimes it is important to consider all the things we are grateful for. Sometimes we cannot see the things we are grateful for until we write it out. Sometimes gratitude takes time and effort and being able to organize your thoughts about what you are grateful can help!
Tip #2: Leave Yourself Grateful Statements on your Mirror
The mirror a lot of times is the one place we look at often. So, the best place to keep a message to yourself is the mirror where you will look every day. Write yourself a positive message every night before you go to bed and leave it for yourself on the mirror to see the next day. If you live with others, ask them to write you a message as well and leave it for you as well so that that way you can see the positive messages others think about you and you will feel more grateful for the people around you as well.
Tip #3: Partake in Random Acts of Kindness
A lot of times we find the things we are grateful for when we help others because we tend not to notice the good things we already have in our lives until we see people who do not have what we have. If we participate in randomly doing things for others, we are more likely to feel better about ourselves as well. For example, pay someone else’s parking meter when you see it is about to run out.
Tip #4: Tell Someone Out Loud About the Things You are Grateful For
Depending on the type of person you are, talking about the things you are grateful for can help because verbalizing it makes it real just writing it down makes it real. A lot of times when we say something out loud it becomes real and we’re able to notice more about what we already have versus what we do not have. So, take a chance and tell someone that you are grateful they are in your life.
Gratitude is something that may take time to have, but being able to say to ourselves: “Hey, I have this great thing in my life and I am grateful for it” can help us actually appreciate it more. Sometimes we do not appreciate what we have until it is gone and if we are able to appreciate it and be thankful for it, we can really value it while it is still in our lives.
