Gratitude — the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Learn how you can reap the numerous benefits of gratitude and how to create a regular gratitude journal practice.

Gratitude is a powerful emotion.

It can transform your life and open up incredible opportunities for love, joy, and success.

It shifts your perspective and helps you find the good in each and every moment.

How to find gratitude when we need it most

People who practice gratitude are predominantly happy and easygoing because they always see the positive in most negative situations.

But it’s often when we need gratitude the most, that it’s difficult to find. When you’re overcome with grief, sadness, anxiety or anger, it’s hard to see what’s going right in your life.

Getting in the habit of keeping a gratitude journal is an excellent way to ensure you experience the benefits of gratitude when you need it most.

In this article, we explain the benefits of gratitude and why it’s such a powerful force. We also walk you through the steps of creating a gratitude journal, and give you advice on how to maintain the habit of writing down what you’re grateful for.

The (Many) Benefits Of A Gratitude Journal

Complicated problems need complicated answers, right?

When intense, painful situations arise, it just doesn’t seem logical that there is a simple solution. This line of thinking often prevents us from accepting answers that could potentially solve our problems.

Gratitude is a simple solution to complicated problems. By disabling painful or seemingly debilitating problems, the simple act of practicing gratitude can bring joy, hope and light to the darkest of times.

Look for positive aspects to any situation no matter how grave the outlook.

Life is balanced by negatives and positives. Your focus on a situation will shape your attitude.

Recall inspiring stories of personal loss that touched your heart, yet created enlightening beauty out of its pain. The everyday heroes of those stories found hope and happiness through gratitude; it wasn’t a fluke.

Journaling your way into happiness

David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk who focuses his work on the benefits of gratitude, said this in his 2013 Ted Talk:

“What is the connection between happiness and gratefulness?

Many people would say, well, that’s very easy.

When you are happy, you are grateful. But think again. Is it really the happy people that are grateful?

We all know quite a number of people who have everything that it would take to be happy, and they are not happy, because they want something else or they want more of the same.

And we all know people who have lots of misfortune, misfortune that we ourselves would not want to have, and they are deeply happy. They radiate happiness.

You are surprised. Why? Because they are grateful. So it is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratefulness that makes us happy.”

The greatest benefit of gratitude is happiness — which of course is the one goal that we’re all seeking to achieve.

Most people would sacrifice everything to find happiness, and most of our life choices are made with the aim of eventual happiness.

Simply put, happiness is the biggest motivator for all of the decisions we make.

A few typical, though misguided, aspirations:

If I find true love, I’ll be happy.

If I am successful in my career, I’ll be happy.

If I’m healthy, I’ll be happy.

Happiness isn’t found in things. It is gratitude for what we have that creates happiness.

Following the Law of Attraction, more happiness will gravitate toward those individuals who are already happy.

Gratitude doesn’t come naturally to most of us. Aiming for goals that aren’t met can make it difficult to pause and genuinely feel grateful for what you have.

But here’s the great news about gratitude: it gets easier with practice, and the perfect way to practice is to start a gratitude journal.

How To Create A Gratitude Journal Ritual (5 Easy Steps)

Creating a gratitude journal is pretty easy — buy a blank notebook and write down a few things you’re grateful for each night before you go to bed.

If this minimalist solution works for you, go for it. But, if you need a different approach, we’ll walk you through the most effective ways to start a gratitude journal. (You can find beautiful gratitude journal templates here, here and here.)

Step 1: Select your journal with care

Make the ritual of gratitude journaling as much fun as possible.

Pick out a journal that visually stimulates you (you love how it looks!), or decorate an ordinary, inexpensive notebook with cherished pictures of people or things you love and care about (your children or pets, or inspirational words and images).

Get creative and have fun personalizing your gratitude journal. You are more likely to maintain the nightly habit of journaling if you love the look of your journal.

Not feeling particularly creative?

Make your journal selection a special, rewarding experience. Go to a store that carries a variety of journals, or search online and treat yourself to a journal that inspires you. Gift yourself with a gratitude journal that you’ll love to look at every night.

Step 2: Create a ritual

Even before you begin writing in your gratitude journal, choose a ritual to repeat every time you journal. Consistency is the key here. Rituals implement a call to action for our mind, body and spirit by our muscle memory. Importantly, rituals create habits.

A few “ritual” suggestions are:

Lighting a candle

Playing a favorite song

Drinking a cup of tea

Taking a relaxing bath

Saying a calming prayer

Chanting a meditation

Anything you decide to do is a great way to let your mind and body know that it’s time to focus on gratitude. Whatever you choose as a ritual, do it consistently. It strengthens the ability to turn action into habit, and it’s usually fun and relaxing, giving us motivation to form our habit.

Step 3: Express your gratitude

Gratitude journals can take on any desired format. Some journalers make a gratitude list of items to express gratitude — others draw images or create a collage of pictures; while a few write a poem to capture and motivate their gratitude.

Expressing your gratitude is very personal and totally up to you.

Feel the gratitude as you write about it.

Even at the end of a terrible day, try to think of at least one good thing that happened that you can be grateful for, no matter how slight. Forget everything else, and just for a moment, write about that one, good, life event and why you feel grateful for it.

Gratitude journal ideas – What to be grateful for

Your Family Your Health (or the absence of pain) Your sense of sight Your oldest friends Your sweet memories Your education Your work Animals The Ocean Cooling rain ….

Step 4: Celebrate quality

Our minds respond better to quality over quantity. One truly grateful, paragraph content can outweigh a list of 50 items. The emotion of gratitude is difficult to connect with a long list.

Dive deep into your gratitude journal about even minor topics, to help you reinforce gratitude in your life. Observe from within as your body and mind get used to experiencing gratitude. The deeper you feel gratitude for even the smallest parts of your life, the easier gratitude sensing becomes for you.

Step 5: Bookend your day

Regular, nightly writing in a gratitude journal is important because it closes your day on a high note. It empowers the feeling in your mind, and helps you infuse the thoughts into your spirit. This cue to your subconscious uses dreams to process and understand the important feelings you associate with those thoughts.

Celebrate a positive attitude for the start of your day by re-reading your gratitude journal entry in the morning. It is simply a double-ended bonus!

How To Maintain The Habit Of A Gratitude Journal

Follow our outlined steps to get you into the habit of writing in your gratitude journal. Positive reinforcement along with repeating your gratitude journal habits can keep you motivated. Journaling habits are a matter of personal choice.

Based on personality type, here are three methods to stay motivated enough to develop a habit.

Method #1 — Keep a daily gratitude journal

For many, daily repetition is the only way to reinforce a habit. If you are the type of person that gets a thrill out of achieving goals, this is a good method for you.

Set your alarm every night and make a commitment to write in your gratitude journal every single night before you go to bed.

Method #2 — Write at least once a week

For others, daily record keeping is so overwhelming that the goal is soon given up on altogether.

If your New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by February, then daily journal writing may be too much for you. That’s totally okay — gratitude journals are effective, not because you do them every day, but simply because you get your mind and body accustomed to expressing gratitude.

Target a goal of journal writing once a week. Set an alarm for Saturday or Sunday and, if you still haven’t written in your gratitude journal that week, go ahead and do it that night. Most people fall into this category, so don’t beat yourself up about only writing once a week.

Method #3 — Reward yourself every time you write

For some, an immediate reward is key to sustaining a daily journal (or anything). Simple self-sleuthing may uncover the fact that your only long-term habits are those that provided instant gratification. Don’t blame your brain chemistry.

The good news is that starting a habit is easy. Select your motivating reward and give it to yourself on a short or long-term schedule that makes sense to you whether nightly or after 30 uninterrupted days of journal writing.

Design your personalized ritual by following the steps outlined for creating a gratitude journal and choosing a method to maintain the habit. You’ll start a valuable ritual for one of the best things you’ve ever done for yourself and your family. Gratitude creates happiness, and who could really ask for more.

How do you journal about gratitude?

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