Gratitude is one of the healthiest things you can do for your mind with regards to your personal development.

Expressing gratitude brings more peace into your life because gratitude is a NOW thing.

Gratitude moves you into acknowledging all the things that are RIGHT with your life – this makes a great antidote to the worries and the problems that often take up most of our thinking, reducing stress and anxiety as we find different ways to channel our energy.

Being grateful about something lets us enjoy it at a different level of personal vibration.

If it touches you, benefits you, makes you wiser, healthier, happier, being aware of being grateful about it provides this motivating and peaceful message that despite our problems, we still have lots of positive things in our lives – that life IS worth it.

And this message compels our subconscious to look for even more positive things.

2 Ways to Make Gratitude a Part of Your Life

Remember there is a BIG difference between a going-through-the-motions, lukewarm thank-you and the type of gratitude that resonates and hums through your body. It’s this latter type of gratitude that you want to practice inviting into your life more frequently and more easily.

1) Gratitude Journal

The gratitude journal is an activity that needs a commitment of at least 3 months and preferably many more.

It’s a process that has the power to make you feel good from the first time you do it, but really it’s only when you’ve been doing it for a period of time that the positive effects will mount up and lead to changes that you can actually see in your decisions and behaviours.

• Every night before you go to bed, make a list of all the things you are grateful for that happened that day. Doing it at night is nice because it leaves you with pleasant thoughts as you drift off to sleep.
• Write down everything you can think for which you are grateful. Include even the smaller things such as someone making you a cup of tea or the sun shining.
• Get into the mood and mindset of that event as you think and write about it.
• If you’ve had a bad day or genuinely can’t think of anything you are grateful for, it’s okay to write something like “I’m grateful I got through today” or “I am grateful I remembered to write in here even though I have nothing else to write” – Just give it time and the gratitude will come.

As you are writing your list, take the time to recreate the happiness inside your body as you feel the gratitude. You will be flooding your body not only with the visuals of the happy memories, but also with endorphines that are natural painkillers and stress relievers.

2) The Glad Game

Take a tip from Pollyanna, a children’s classic, and play the Glad Game. You can play this game all day long and it comes into its own when something challenging has happened because it works on your attitude, stretching your ability to see things from different angles.

• Notice when something good or bad has happened.
• Finish this sentence about it “I am glad about this because… “
• Allow yourself to feel genuinely glad about the reason(s) you have given.

This deceptively simple game has the power to change your reaction to something negative almost immediately. Your biggest challenge will be remembering to do it “live and in the moment” so be aware of this and practice!

Do you think it’s possible to be consciously grateful about everything in our lives?