Our judgements and movements are a cycle - what you think touches what you do, and how you act affects how you feel. So today we'll talk about count both grateful thoughts and grateful actions into your life.
First, a couple of palpable actions you can take to add gratitude into every single day of your life.
Set Up Cues In Your Life To Remind You
Every time I speak to people about what they fight with when it comes to practicing gratitude, without a doubt the thing that comes up the most is people struggle to recall to do it.
To add more gratitude into your life - and to make it a regular routine - you need to remember to train it.
Sandwich Your Day With Gratitude
By that I mean: start and end your day with some sort of gratitude practice.
I love starting the day off with gratitude and I feel like it has a positive influence on the rest of my day. And I also find that ending the day with gratitude helps to bring me back to place of appreciation no matter what has happened during the day.
Grateful Thoughts Make For A Better Life
Here are a few practices to help you remember all the things to be appreciative for in your life.
Working on gratitude, no matter what's facing you, helps to reinforce your emotions. It can help make you stronger so when unforeseen stress hits, you can handle it better and spring up back better than you ever expected.
Remember The Bad Times
Thinking about a time in your life that really sucked may not seem like the best way to nurture gratitude in your daily life, but obviously, it's kind of a crucial part of becoming a more grateful person. Per The Huffington Post, "the key to leading a thankful life is acceptance setbacks as part of your overall journey."
So fundamentally, recalling the difficult times that you've already overawed, can help you gain some much-needed standpoint when it feels like you have nothing to be grateful for.
Make Time For Your Favorite People
Dr. Robert Emmons told The Huffington Post that gratitude, "actually fortifies relationships and relationships are the strongest forecasters of happiness and coping with stress." Additionally, Dr. Michael E. McCullough, a University of Miami researcher, told The New York Times that, "More than other sensation, gratitude is the emotion of friendship." So, if you want to live a more grateful life, make sure you're spending quality time with the people you love.
Make Time To Help Others
Not only does research suggest that volunteering can improve feelings of depression, but people who make time to help others usually feel grateful for the experience, because it allows them to use their talents in new, meaningful ways.
Savor The Small Stuff
OK, so maybe you're not where you want to be monetarily, and that means you can't afford to do the things you really want to do. Maybe you're going through a difficult breakup and everything seems horrible. Or, maybe everything is fine, but you're in a weird funk right now anyway. Whatever's going on in your life, though, remember that there will always be best things to adore - like pizza, your favorite TV sequence, soft clothing, and clean sheets. Try to savor the small things in life, then no matter what's happening in your universe, practicing gratitude should become less thought-provoking.
