In Back to the Future, Doc said, “Whatever happens, Marty, don't ever go to 2020!” Unfortunately, we did experience 2020, or more appropriately, we have been enduring it.
Every single one of us is grieving in one way or another. For some of us (and this group includes me), it’s the most painful grief we’ve ever experienced. In times like these, it’s incredibly challenging to think of anything to be grateful for.
For a while, I sat in my grief truly crippled in sadness. Many bottles of wine, boxes of Kleenex, and chocolates served as crutches for my pain. It wasn’t until I began to incorporate gratitude into my day that things started to become more manageable. In fact, research has found that the single most contributor to happiness in one’s life is gratitude.
My father passed away this year from the coronavirus, and since I began to incorporate gratitude every day into my life (I write down three things I’m grateful for), I have begun to see that I am so grateful for having him in my life. He absolutely loved life and intentionally filled his life with love, humor, kindness, and most of all, adventure. I had the privilege of having him in my life for so long, telling jokes, recounting his stories (even if I’d heard them already many, many times), and being the voice that showed me how to prioritize fun and enjoy life above everything else.
In challenging times like these, you can either retreat (like I did) and avoid life as much as possible, or you can begin to look at the world with a fresh perspective and infuse gratitude into your life. This post isn’t meant to be a eulogy for my father or to tell you that gratitude will help solve all of the challenges that many of us have encountered this year. I do hope that it might paint the picture of the power of gratitude and how it can shift one’s perspective and inject hope in some of the most challenging times. Beyond that, I hope it inspires others to commit to a habit of being grateful. I’ve compiled some things that may help you intentionally incorporate gratitude into your life.
1. Write It Down
Sometimes simplicity wins. This idea involves writing down three things you’re grateful for every day. Some days will be harder than others. Keep going. Once you’ve done this for a couple of months, it should become a habit and sooner than later, your life will feel like it’s missing something when you don’t do it.
2. Reverse Thinking with Gratitude
We are all our worst critics. When a negative thought comes into your head, begin to get into the habit of saying, “This is just a thought I used to think, and it’s not true.” Then turn it to be something that you’re grateful for. Here’s an example:
Negative: “There’s absolutely nothing I can do when it rains during a pandemic. I’m going mad!”
Gratitude: “I’m grateful for the opportunity the rain is providing me to relax, cozy up, and jump into a project.”
3. Write Letters or Postcards of Gratitude
When you take the time to highlight the people in your life that you are grateful for, it not only will light up that person’s life and create a stronger bond with them, it can also help you recognize the depth of your gratitude. You can also substitute a letter with a phone call. I’d personally like to establish this habit next year.
Inspiring resource: Check out this gratitude experiment run by the awesome SoulPancake. They ran an experiment where they encouraged people to write a letter to a person they were grateful for. This exercise increased their levels of happiness by 2 to 4%. However, when the same people made a phone call to the person they were thankful for to express their gratitude directly, happiness levels jumped from 4% to 19%.
4. Create a Gratitude Jar
Write down one thing you’re grateful for every day on a slip of paper and drop it in a jar. Open the jar monthly or a couple of times a year to take in everything you are grateful for. Visual reminders like this can be very powerful. As a bonus, if you use Post-it notes, you can also create a collage or pick ones to put on your fridge or your bathroom mirror.
5. Display a Gratitude Object
Put something in your house that triggers you to immediately think about something that you’re grateful for when you see it. It could be a rock that says “gratitude,” a cute sign or picture, or just a piece of paper you put somewhere. Whatever it is, make a commitment to yourself that you’ll pause and reflect on what you’re grateful for every time you see it.
Bonus Activity: The Compliments Project
I learned about this from Jennifer Gonzales’ Blog, Cult of Pedagogy. Basically, this idea involves having a student sit in front of the class, while other students write compliments behind them on a whiteboard. Although this isn’t a novel idea, nor an idea that you can do daily, it can be a powerful way to have others describe what things they are grateful for in another person. You can do this quarterly at work or do it during family gatherings, even remotely.
Need more inspiration? Check out these articles for some additional ideas:
• 40 Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude (Lifehack)
• 10 Ways to Become More Grateful (Greater Good Magazine)
• 8 Ways to Have More Gratitude Every Day (Forbes)
• Buddhist Teacher Jack Kornfield on Gratitude, the Mindful Revolution, and Learning to Embrace Suffering (HuffPost)