Gratitude is such an amazing trait to have as part of your personality. When you are more grateful for the things and/or people in your life, you radiate happiness and are a more positive person. Showing your gratitude to others can also help make them feel good and help you build stronger relationships.
So if gratitude is such a positive and beneficial practice, why is it that so few of us practice it? I thought I would delve into this question a bit more and I came to a conclusion that perhaps people just don't have enough time in their day to practice gratitude.
Gratitude can take up to 5 minutes of your time to do and will have a lasting, positive effect on your day. Therefore, to bust this misconception, I wanted to share with you 7 ways in which you can incorporate gratitude into your daily routine.
Make Time
We all have 24 hours in a day but we all have different priorities on how we use our time. If you find yourself scrolling on social media for an hour or two a day, ask yourself if you can sacrifice spending 5 minutes out of those 2 hours practicing gratitude and developing yourself.
By working out your priorities or the habits that you spend your time doing, you are able to identify where you can substitute some time doing aimless / unproductive tasks for more benefitting and self development tasks.
Be Prepared
By preparing the night before you practice gratitude you are allowing your brain to think less in the morning and just do it. So the night before your gratitude session, get our your notebook and pen on the side so that first thing in the morning you reach for your notebook and not your phone.
Go Virtual
For some people, they may just not have the time to sit for 5 minutes and practice gratitude as they are constantly on the go. But you can still practice gratitude when you are on the go as you can make a note of the top 3 things you are grateful for, virtually.
So on your morning commute, instead of scrolling social media or emails, take time for you, just a small amount of time, to write down your gratitude list in the notes section of your phone. Trust me, you won't regret it.
Understand Your Why
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I constantly refer back to your why, but I think it is so important as if you don't know why you are working towards something then it has no real purpose. So ask yourself, why do you want to practice gratitude? Then write it down somewhere were it is easily viewable and start your gratitude journey.
Be In Touch With Your Feelings
When practicing gratitude, notice how you feel before a gratitude session and how you feel afterwards. By being in touch with your emotions and how practicing gratitude makes you feel afterwards will help your brain recognise that what you are doing is good and that you should keep it going.
Assess Your Time
Earlier I mentioned about practicing gratitude every day and that everyone has 24 hours in a day, which is true, but you may personally only want to practice gratitude once a week for example and practice gratitude by doing a weekly round up so you can reflect on all the good things that have happened throughout the week.
Work out when practicing gratitude would work for you and see how you get on.
Get Inspired
Often, if I am wanting to build something into a habit, I do tend to look for people doing similar things so that I can feel inspired. So I would suggest looking for people on social media such as: gratitude coaches or positive quote accounts who can uplift and inspire you.
I would also suggest following the Be Inspired YouTube channel who not only have videos on gratitude but other inspiring, motivational videos for habits and lifestyles you want to live or incorporate into your life. The video I found inspiring on this Youtube page was called "The One Billion Dollar Habit." You can watch the video here
Over the month of March, I will be challenging myself to practice gratitude every day in the 'Be The Very Best Version of You' exclusive Facebook group.
The exclusive Facebook group is designed to have a community of like minded people taking part in challenges that will help them develop the very best version of themselves. There are live videos, useful information, helpful resources plus so much more, all for FREE!
So if you would like to take part in the challenge then sign up to my mailing list on the home page of Lifeful Lifestyle and you will receive exclusive access.
I hope you have found today's post useful. I think gratitude is such a powerful tool to use in our every day lives and it can be as simple as showing gratitude for the warm water in the shower or the fact that we have woken up today.
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