Embracing Gratitude

For Appreciate the Journey month, I am turning to gratitude to foster my sense of appreciation.

Being thankful has long been lauded as an important tool to find contentment and happiness. The self care books are full of gratitude tips. It has popped up as a main theme in Self Care for Life, 50 Ways to Yay, Gratitude, Change Your Life One Day at a Time and The Flourish Handbook.

Today I'm going to look at two of these books and find ways that I can foster more gratitude in my own life.

50 Ways to Yay! by Alexi Panos promises to be a transformative tool that brings happiness to your life. With 50 practical tips, advice, missions and reflections, the book has a lot to offer. One of these tips is choosing to be grateful. Panos talks about a state of true gratitude and training your brain to find more of it. "Happiness is created by a moment-to-moment choice to be grateful."

Gratitude by Dani DiPirro is full of tips on how to show gratitude at home, work and even after a tough day. Mixing inspirational quotes with illustrations, it's the perfect go-to guide for finding happiness. The book suggests that the benefits of gratitude are enormous; and can even promote a healthy body. The Top 10 tips at the back of the book are my favourite, and I have summarised some of my favourites below.


Taking the tips from these two books I have compiled this list of how we can foster more gratitude -

- Keep a Gratitude Journal - write down three things you are grateful for everyday.

- Write a Gratitude List - record everything whether it's huge or a little thing, and remember that you have so much from your health to your education to your determination to be thankful for.
For example;
The big things - my parents put me through university.
The small things - fresh coffee brewing when I get into work.

- Turn off your mobile phone and be at peace, or what I choose to do is, turn off all notifications from apps.

- When you have a bad day, list the good things that also happened e.g. made it to the bus stop on time and it didn't rain.

- Do something nice for someone else. Show them that you are grateful for them.

- Express your gratitude to others. Say thank you when someone holds the door open for you or gives you a compliment.

- Welcome change. It's not an immediate disaster. Appreciate a change in direction.

We all have something to be grateful for. Sometimes, we just have to stop to appreciate what we have.