Practice Daily Gratitude

In my opinion, practicing daily gratitude is super important when you are wanting to find true happiness. Merriam-Webster defines gratitude as "the state of being grateful," and they define grateful as "affording pleasure or contentment".

Eleven months after my husband passed away, I was able to attend The Orange Frog workshop with some fabulous coworkers. This workshop was based on a book by Shawn Achor called The Happiness Advantage: The 7 Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work. Shawn basically professes that if you find ways to be happy now, rather than constantly trying to chase happiness (conditional happiness) you can live a happier, fuller, more productive life.

What I learned at that workshop is that I was already doing a lot of the things that Shawn teaches. I have been a huge fan of joy and gratitude for years, and I truly think it was doing these things that helped me process my husband's death in as healthy a way as possible.

When I practice gratitude, I generally call it "focusing on the good." I look at my day, and I simply try to come up with at least 3 things that are good about that day.

Now, when I have taught this to friends, they often want to simply list their loved ones. So, we generally do one main list of all the good things in their life, and each loved ones name makes this list. From then on you can't write their name down unless you are stating something specific. You can also add to this main list as life goes on.

Of course I am grateful for each of my three children. Listing them each day would be redundant, and it wouldn't really allow me to focus in on the specifics of my gratitude. So, today, I could say that I am grateful that my mom, my daughter, Ali, and son's girlfriend, Marissa, went to the grocery store for our family. I could also say that I am grateful that my daughter, Meghan, is able to go celebrate her friend Lauryn's 17th birthday, and I am also grateful that she was asking our opinions on her outfit choices. I love that she makes us feel included.

You might notice that my son didn't make the list today. That would make some of my friends feel horribly uncomfortable. If you are like them, you are going to have to learn to get over this. My son is fabulous, and I love him very much. He is on my master list, and I am absolutely grateful for him every single day. Because he is on that list, I don't have to write him down every day. He is a given! Now, he and I are having a mother-son lunch tomorrow, so he will likely make the list then, but the idea is to focus on little, random things that might not even be on your main list.

Sometimes I am grateful for the weather, the night sky, the fact that I actually got to see the sunrise, or a beautiful flower that I happened to see. Other times I might list a specific book that I am reading, the fact that I got a nap, or something cute our pets did that made me smile. During the fall and winter, I am known for being grateful for a hot beverage in one of our cute mugs, and in the summer, I am often grateful for a lemon shakeup (with or without Titos). One of my children recently went through a difficult situation, and I was so grateful for friends who lifted us up in prayer. Actually, this isn't completely over, and I am still grateful that when I feel overwhelmed by everything, I can turn to my friends for prayer. That gives me such peace.

At first, it can be difficult to come up with 3 or more things each day. However, the more you practice this skill, the easier it becomes. Now, I can't help but look around and find so much to be grateful for. I don't need a big fancy home because I am just so grateful for the home that I have. When I am able to save money to update something in my home, I am so proud and grateful that I can do this. When you learn to be grateful for the little things, you tend to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and stop trying to compare your life to everyone else. You also stop wallowing in pity or the muck of life.

Now, does this mean that life will be happy and wonderful all the time? That is a big ol' "Hell no!". I wish, but let's be real. There is no way to be happy all the time. That doesn't even sound healthy. Heck, my antidepressants don't even make me happy all the time. Anyone or anything that promises happiness all the time or claims to be happy 100% of the time, is likely a liar or suffering from an unusual medical condition.

What I have found, however, is that learning to focus on the good more often, training your brain to be positive, really helps you to navigate the more difficult times easier. Because during those times, your brain can't help but start scanning for something positive to look for. It's just what it is used to doing. So, while you are feeling sad or mad, which is absolutely okay, you will also be feeling grateful. This helps you feel a little more balanced and lessens the grip that these feelings can have on you.

I want to go back to something I just said. It is absolutely okay to feel any emotion. The positive ones and the negative ones all have a place in our lives. I teach this to my students on a regular basis. I also teach them that how we handle our emotions is what truly matters. Anger is okay. Hitting a peer is not okay. We also don't want to pretend that we are happy, grateful and positive all the time. That is toxic positivity, and it does not have a place in a well balanced society.

So, as much as I am a huge fan of gratitude, as much as I will constantly try to focus on the good things in life, I will also allow myself to feel what I am feeling. My husband's 52nd birthday is in 3 days. It is the 6th one that we will celebrate without him, and you better believe I am feeling a mixture of things....sadness, anger, grief. As I type that, my brain is reminding myself that I am so grateful for every second that I had with Jeff. While being grateful makes me an overall happier person, it does not make me happy 100% of the time. It doesn't erase my sadness, anger or grief, but I do believe it helps me get to the other side faster than before I started practicing gratitude.

Shawn Achor says to try practicing gratitude for 21 days, and I believe he said this because it used to be said that it took 21 days to make something a habit. Some other studies I saw said 18-254 days with 66 being kind of the norm. So, I am not going to make a promise on the timeframe. I will say that when I trained my brain to focus on the good for 30 days, I could definitely tell a difference in my happiness level, but that could just be me.

If you give it a try, I would love to hear from you! Did it help your happiness level? Did you notice a change in your overall mood?

#practicedailygratitude #focusonthegood #notoxicpositivity