How to start a daily gratitude journal

Life is busy and it can be hard sometimes to stop and reflect on the things you’ve achieved. You may feel like your life is a whirlwind of tasks – work, taking care of the kids and trying to keep up a social life. With time just flying by how can you capture what you’re happy and grateful for in life? The best way to reflect on your achievements – no matter how small – is to start a daily gratitude journal. How you feel about your day and your achievements is all about perspective. If you don’t take time to acknowledge them then they’ll eventually just become a forgotten memory. So whatever it is you feel proud of – whether it’s getting your baby to try a new food or doing a fabulous presentation at work – write it down.

Gratitude journaling is a way of recognising the positive things in life, and once you start to do that regularly it will help you try to see through the negativity life can throw at you. For example you may start the day stuck in traffic and be late to work. You could see that as a negative but then you could still achieve all your tasks at work and have an amazing dinner when you get home. It’s time to rework that mindset. If you’re still not convinced here’s some more benefits as to why you should start a gratitude journal:

• It helps you focus on the positivity in your life.
• You will start to feel happier as you’re no longer focusing on the negative aspects that happen to you.
• You will start to sleep better as negative thoughts will no longer cloud your mind.
• It helps you to destress as you’re less worried about the day to day.

Here’s the first steps you need to take to start a daily gratitude journal.

Step 1 – Start a daily gratitude journal

The hardest thing about anything is getting started. Many of us procrastinate and say we’ll do it tomorrow, and then tomorrow quickly becomes next month. Before you know it’s a years flown by and you still haven’t done what you said you would. To start recognising the positivity in your life you need to start today. You can start in a old note book if you want and move over to a fancier notebook over time. You could even use your phone if you prefer, whatever suits you. All that’s really important is that you’re starting to recognise the good things in your life.

Step 2 – Work out the best time and place to write in your daily gratitude journal

To make sure you stick to writing in your gratitude journal, you need to find a time and place when you have the most time to focus. By committing a specific time of your day to journaling it will start to become part of your routine and will soon become second nature to you. You may have more time in the morning or you may find it easier to look over your day just before bed. There’s no specific amount of time you need to spend writing in your journal; whether it’s 5 or 25 minutes just do whatever feels right for you. Find a place where you feel comfortable to write your thoughts; whether that’s on your bed, or at your desk you know you that is your to go place where you can write in your journal.

Step 3 – work out the style you want to use in your gratitude journal

At first it may be hard to know what to write in your daily gratitude journal. To get you started you may want to start using these prompts:

What things are you grateful for today?

I recommend not putting a minimum on thinking about what you’re grateful about each day as it may feel forced if you can’t think of many. Write down whatever pops into your mind that made you smile; whether that was getting a seat on the train or enjoying the warm sun on your face during your lunch break.

List three reasons why you’re excited for tomorrow?

Whether you’ve got something exciting planned like a holiday or you’re meeting a friend you haven’t seen for a while, write it down in your gratitude journal. By writing down things you’re excited to do the day before, it will build up the excitement and positivity inside you so you’ll start the next day on a high. Even if you can’t think of three things try to come up with at least one – it could be as simple as you buying your favourite lunch.

Name one person you feel grateful to have in your life today

Name the first person who pops up that you feel made the most impact to your day. Whether that was your friend for buying an unprompted coffee when you needed a pick me up or your boss for sharing the tasks around more if you were struggling to keep up with your work.

Name one thing you’ve achieved today

This can be a hard one so don’t worry if you can’t always come up with something. It doesn’t need to be a massive achievement, even something as simple as dealing with that task you’ve been putting off for weeks is an achievement.

Something that made you laugh today

It could be anything; just write down some of the things that made you giggle. For me it would be my cat playing with his springs as he loves to play fetch like a dog.

Write down the things that bothered you and how you can change them

Whilst it’s a gratitude journal, it’s important that you get any negativity off your mind. By writing it onto paper it becomes physical and you can start to see ways you can overcome the problem. For example if you’re annoyed you keep getting stuck in traffic you can work out an alternative route to work.

So I hope this post helps you start your daily gratitude journal so you can start discovering the positivity in your life. Do let me know what you thought in the comments box!

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Before you go why not discover how your skin is affected by stress (and how you can prevent it)