Two Ways to Develop an Attitude of Gratitude
I know blogging about thankfulness and gratitude in November is cliché, but what better time to focus our thoughts on thankfulness and gratitude.
After all, we do celebrate Thanksgiving Day in America this month.
Too often, though, our attention on thankfulness is missing for the rest of the year.
Being grateful is a choice. If you’ve lived most of your life NOT focusing on gratitude, it’s not so simple to change that perspective.
Here are two ways to help you cultivate an attitude of thankfulness beyond one Thursday in November.
Keep a thankful list.
It’s sometimes hard to write down things that you’re thankful for, especially on those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days, but over time the act of physically writing out a daily list can produce an grateful attitude.
Start your list with simple things like a bed to sleep in. A house that keeps you dry and warm. The sunrise/sunset. If you look around you, there is so much to be thankful for.
If writing out a list isn’t for you, you could try grateful beads. That’s what I use.
My grateful bead string has ten beads to help recall things to be thankful for. Three beads for three people who touch your life. Six beads for six things, events, and occurrences and the final bead to remind you to give thanks to your creator.
You can find beads like mine here or do a search online for grateful beads. There are many options.
Share thankfulness on social media
We are a plugged-in culture, which makes it next to impossible to avoid social media altogether no matter how hard we might try. Social media sites are filled with an abundance of thoughts and images of wars, earthquakes, floods, fires, sick children, murdered spouses and, lately, politics.
By sharing positive, uplifting posts, memes, and videos instead of those, you encourage attitudes of thankfulness in yourself and others.
Give these two ideas a try, I think you’ll find an attitude of gratitude grows the more you use it.
