Plus 4 Bonus Gratitude Exercises that You can Implement Today! 

During the holiday season we hear a lot of cute sayings about being Grateful, but what does Gratitude really mean and how can we have more of it in our lives? 

Gratitude is gratefulness in action, one must “be grateful” to have gratitude. Sometimes it can be hard to find the silver lining of things, but that’s essentially what gratitude is, again an action of “finding” the silver lining. 

Gratitude is not possible without action, even if it’s just internal action through our thoughts and mindset, it requires us to actively find gratitude within ourselves. Often that’s how gratitude starts within our minds, but in the act of having gratitude we then begin to exude from our pores an obvious gratefulness which can be seen by others through how we act and treat ourselves and others. 

The act of gratitude enriches our lives and others by its very nature. There are many scientific studies out there showing its positive effects, so I’ll let you read those on your own, instead I’ll share with you some tips and tricks on how to actively be grateful aka How to Bring on Gratitude starting today.  

How to Be Grateful in Times Like These

Do you guys remember when we were in the middle of a very frightening deadly pandemic that turned our entire world upside down? We like our routines and all of our activities that yes, we probably did take for granted. We may now feel a need to act as if the world is still the same as it was before, but the reality is, it is not and it’s perfectly okay for you to want to make some changes. 

While I’m all about goals, the goals have to be relevant to you and your life. With the changes over the past few years it may be time to take a close look at the goals you are working towards in your life and maybe switch it up a bit. 

Scientific research shows that when people give up on goals that are not reachable, on unrealistic goals, it can often be a powerful antidepressant. 

Doing this allows us to let go of the obsession we have to cling onto things, to be insistent the world stays the way it was. When we can let go of those unreachable goals there is a sort of freedom in that.

This does not mean that we surrender or give up. In fact, it’s the opposite. When we can really accept what is, it allows us to really look around and instead of being tortured by what isn’t here and spend all of our energy trying to make things more normal or different than they are. 

Instead, you can say okay this is the situation that we are in and thank whatever higher power you believe in for the good things that you do have in your life. 

Wash, Rinse, & Repeat…

Just like bathing and exercising, this is not a one and done type of thing. We will have to accept certain things in our lives over and over again and that’s just part of the process. Our ability to do this will help both our mental and physical health. 

When we are in an ongoing state of gratitude, a state of being aware of everything good around us, we are more likely to see more good and more importantly the feeling and belief that there is more good coming for you. Yes, we eventually all got more toilet paper. 

Is there anything that you’re really great at or confident in? Like you know that you’re going to rock this one thing every time? Yet, after every time of rocking it, you’re still proud of yourself and grateful that you rocked it so hard? 

Gratitude can be like that. You can be grateful before something happens, grateful when it happens and after it happens, continuously manifesting itself with acceptance of your awesomeness and ongoing gratitude for it. 

Bring on Gratitude

4 Gratitude Exercises that you can do today to bring on gratitude. 

1. Borrowing this first one from one of my favorite authors, Jen Sincero. “This is Good Because…” 

Basically, everytime anything happens to you, the good, the bad and the ugly you fill in the blank, “This is good because…” The more you do this the easier it will be for you to be grateful no matter the situation. 

Now, I personally know that there’s some situations that are just so WTF you may feel that there’s no finding the good, but trust me there is. It may take years to learn from a significant negative experience how the hell it was a good thing, but even some of the worst times in our lives we can look back on years later and find things to be grateful for. Like how your fiance cheating resulted in calling off the wedding that you spent quite a while planning all by yourself really was for the best (telling that story for a friend;-) 

2. Grateful Hand Washing 

Instead of singing that birthday song again for the 100th time when washing your hands today, why not say 5 things you are grateful for. Your fingers are right in front of you, you know if it helps to use them to count. 

Pausing for a minute from all of the craziness that is life these days and identifying things you are grateful for will put your focus on the positive and away from the negative. 

You can also find this exercise in our Hit Your Goals workbook along with many other helpful resources to keep you in a positive mindset while working towards your goals. (Could be a great holiday gift along with our Goals Planner for the New Year…just saying!)

3. Focus on the positive

*Follow these steps before you read through it all and ruin the surprise! 

1. Look around wherever you are and find 5 Green things. Don’t think too hard about this just quickly find them and call them out. 
2. Close your eyes and name 5 Red things. (Wait, I can’t search for anything red… exactly!) 
3. Open your eyes. 

Let’s say the green things are the positives or green lights in our lives, moving us forward in a positive direction. If I look for these I can easily find them. 

Now let’s say that the red things are the negatives or the stop lights in our lives, preventing us from reaching our true potential. If we do not even look for them and perhaps close our eyes once in a while to them we won’t be able to identify them or focus on them. 

Ultimately, we only see the positives and doing so can have many benefits, but for this article it easily allows us to see all that we have to be grateful for. 

We often weigh the good and bad of things, we love those pros and cons lists to make choices, yet we forget that by consistently thinking about the negative blocks us from identifying and thinking about all of the positives. The negatives often win in our lives by default. So let’s even the scales a bit and Bring on the PROS! 

4. Self-Love 

Unfortunately, for us humans loving ourselves in today’s world is a tall order. 

When I see people becoming the most confident and truly happy and really feel like they are making it, what the actual change is or how big it is doesn’t really matter. What matters is the belief that the changes can occur. 

Not to be all corny here, but… be the change you seek…aka. you are the positive in your life. Gratitude helps us to subconsciously believe in ourselves. We are learning that in being grateful we are being grateful to ourselves. 

When we can really understand and believe this we can do great things. This allows us to truly be able to be grateful for all that we are as well as all that we are becoming. Essentially, choosing  a growth mindset, but we’ll talk about that in another blog coming to you soon!

If you think we may be able to help you Bring on Gratitude please always feel free to  CONTACT US You can also reach out via phone or email to schedule your free 15 minute phone consult or just go ahead and schedule your session  HERE 

With Love and Appreciation, 

Victoria