9 WAYS TO DISCOVER GRATITUDE (even in 2020)

I believe that the life you crave and dream about is on the other side of gratitude. Gratitude is the portal between having ordinary and extraordinary experiences every day.

While we can’t always control what happens around us, we can influence how we respond to the events that fill our days.

Gratitude is a daily, habit-based, lifelong, perspective-management practice. It’s something you practice. Something you get better at but never master. I think of it as active gratitude. Something I’m responsible for, for myself, every day.

For more than 20 years, I’ve been practicing what I call active gratitude. What I mean is the practice of living in the feeling of gratitude every day. Gratitude is something I pay particular attention to, journal about, and think about. I intentionally watch the words I use so they encourage me to linger in the feeling of being grateful for as long as possible. We never master this practice, we should do it every day, and it is in the strangest places. Let me explain.

One of my favorite moments in ordinary life is the dark, quiet evenings, smack in the middle of winter, while the house is somewhat quiet (but still full of kids), and I have the privilege of mindlessly unloading my dishwasher. Often I’ll be sipping on a cup of tea or a glass of wine, music drifting in the background, and while I could ask my kids to finish the kitchen, I’ll opt to do it myself. It is one of my favorite moments, because I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that this is my life.

Studies show that being grateful has a collection of benefits. Bleh, forget the studies. I don’t care what studies say; these are the benefits I’ve noticed (and my friends report similar):

• Anxiety and gratitude have a hard time existing in the same space. The more you feel grateful, the more anxiety and frustration fade away.
• Tense moments become a lot more tolerable if you can focus on what you appreciate about that moment, that person, or that situation. It’s like your gratitude for the person or situation can diffuse an otherwise tense conversation.
• When you live in gratitude, it’s a lot easier to appreciate what you have and where you are. It’s as though you suddenly realize that one more purse, one more pair of jeans, or a new couch (you get it, one more thing) isn’t going to make you happier. Being grateful allows you to live in the moment.
• When you feel grateful for everything around you, it’s a lot easier to realize You Are Enough just the way you are, right now. You are complete. Right now, at this moment, and just as you are.
• The more you feel grateful, the more energy you’ll have to focus on the pieces of your life you love. By focusing on what IS working and what you are thankful for, you just don’t have the time to bitch and moan — which, frankly, drains the life right out of anyone.
• If you can appreciate the moment, you can permit yourself to sleep and rest. You can look after you.
• You are much more fun to be around when you are continuously grateful. This often means you are more likely to get a raise, be invited to hang with friends and be the person others are happy to see.
• It’s sure a lot easier to make more money when you have more energy. You are more pleasant to be around, and you are way more fun. Living in gratitude feels like the fountain of youth, and abundance tends to follow you.

This magic gateway to bliss cannot be purchased at a store. It’s something you already have right at your fingertips, no matter what situation you’re in right now. You can just tap into gratitude and experience it right now.

Here are nine practical ways you can start practicing gratitude right now (and then for the rest of your life). None of these will cost you a dime. And, oddly, the results tend to be pretty immediate.

1. Notice what you like and what you don’t. Just pay attention and start noticing what IS going smoothly in your life. Notice what you can be grateful for right now. (Just a thought, you could start with the device you are reading this post on.) The art of really paying attention to what you like and don’t like is one of the first steps to putting more of what you do like into your life. For the next 48 hours, I challenge you just to pay attention and notice what you like and don’t like.
2. Notice the specific details of what you are grateful for. Maybe it’s a shape, a color, a taste, a temperature, a size, an amount, a feeling; there are so many options. What, specifically, are you grateful for? The more specific you can be, the more it becomes second nature to be thankful for the little things in life.
3. Take ordinary moments or tasks and flip them to be gratitude opportunities. Next time you are doing a tedious, repetitive task, try to reflect on what that task means to you. Folding laundry means you have clean clothes to wear. Unloading a dishwasher means you have running water, clean dishes, a house with electricity, and food in your tummy. Our mundane tasks are the result of a lot of luxury.
4. Imagine what someone else, with fewer resources but a similar situation, is dealing with right now. It’s so easy to lose focus on how privileged and blessed we are. Next time you’re frustrated, instead of getting grumpy, try thinking of someone who could be dealing with a similar frustration or problem as you but does not have the same resources you do to handle it. How grateful can you be that you get to solve problems with the resources you have. Keep this one simple; for example, English is a darn hard language to learn, and it’s the most commonly spoken language in the world, so if you are blessed enough to have known it first, you have something to be grateful for. If you speak two languages, you have double the resources to communicate.
5. Create a “Situational Gratitude Moments” inventory. Write them down, keep them handy, and then use it. Here’s what I mean, sit down for 10 minutes and imagine what those who came before us used to deal with. For example, in the early 1950s, my grandma had a brand-new baby, lived in an old granary with no running water in the middle of a very wintery part of Canada. She had 12 cloth diapers. Can you imagine how hard it would have been for her to keep those clean, dry, and on the baby? I have several situational moments like this I keep top of mind, so when I start thinking I have it rough I can quickly remember how freaking blessed I am by merely tapping into perspective. I love this trick. I use it daily. If you feel stuck on this one, try thinking of people who came before us, or situations where the odds were just stacked against someone way more than where you are right now.
6. Speak what you are grateful for out loud. When you add words to what you are feeling, it brings it way more to life. You can tell those around you — and those you love, specifically — what you are grateful for about them. Another way to do this is to notice and say out loud what luxuries you are thankful for. An example is in the middle of an ice-cold Canadian winter, it’s pretty easy to be grateful for furnaces, the ability to pay your heat bill, and that someone figured out how to get us out of living in teepees (can you imagine living in winter with only a fireplace to keep you warm? Yuck!).
7. Start ordinary moments with a pause to be grateful. For example, before dinner starts, ask everyone to say what they are thankful for from that day. When you kick off a meeting, take a moment for everyone to say what they are grateful for that week, day, or moment. At our company, we start our meetings with a quick moment of ‘positive focus.’ When you start looking at gratitude as a lifelong practice, these ordinary moments become a way to keep gratitude part of everyday life. Find a few you like and keep practicing. Endless gratitude is such an excellent way to stay connected to your kids, friends, family, and teammates.
8. Next time you donate or give away something, pause and reflect on how grateful you are that it was part of your life for a while. This works incredibly well with clothes, cleaning out toys, saying goodbye to a car or other material objects. When you are looking at the clutter, thinking about cleaning it out, or actually cleaning it out, find a small way to be thankful that it was part of your life for a while. And now it is time to let it go to its new home.
9. Play a gratitude game at bedtime. With your kids, in your journal or with your partner before you retire at night, take a moment and state or write three things you are grateful for that day. This is my very favorite of all of these practices. I love what my kids tell me at night when we reflect on what we are grateful for from the day, the week, or life. It’s also a great way to say I love you in different words. If you or someone in your life is a ‘words of appreciation’ Love Language person, this is a crucial way to connect with them. If you are a bit more introverted, you can just write it in a journal. I love the 5 Minute Journal if you want a structured format for it.

I don’t believe there is ‘One Thing,’ a magical key, or any magic bullet to being happy and having the life you want. Life is a giant journey of forever optimizing and enjoying right where we are right now. I believe gratitude is a key element and fundamental practice that will only allow us to enjoy life more, connect more with those we love, and experience more abundance in every moment. It’s one of the best practices you can invest in. It’s something that can be practiced daily and, over time, will become part of who you are.

The benefits of gratitude are plenty and unlimited. It doesn’t cost anything to start practicing, and as far as I can tell, it costs you nothing to at least give one of these ways a try for a week or two and see what happens.

I’d love to know your tips, tricks, and how you practice gratitude; please share below. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻