How Gratitude Changed My Life

Do you want to learn to appreciate the little things, and shift your perspective from negative to positive? It’s time to practice gratitude.

To preface this post, the word gratitude is tattooed on my ankle and it is arguably my favorite word in the world. I am not exaggerating when I say that this concept changed my life.

I can’t remember how and I can’t remember why but the day I started practicing gratitude is the day my life shifted paths.

Who I Used to Be

Looking back to the girl I used to be, I don’t even recognize her as myself. I would let the most minor inconvenience dictate my view of how my day was. If I got 100 on my test, ate a really great sandwich, laughed with my friends, but the boy I had a crush on didn’t talk to me enough. Forget all the good things that happened that day, I would decide that it was a terrible horrible no good very bad day. I was miserable… all the time… and it was my own fault.

The truth is life will NEVER be perfect. If life was perfect we wouldn’t have any sense of appreciation and joy, there would be no variance of emotion which arguably makes the human experience so beautiful. The lows make us appreciate the highs more. My problem was my focus. Rather than finding silver linings in what was going wrong in my life, I was making the subconscious choice to not only see but look for the bad in every situation.

Negativity

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my twenty years of life it’s that negativity doesn’t get you anywhere. No one found success by throwing negativity out into the world, because they only received negative experiences in response. That’s it, the cruel cycle of disappointments and hardships. If you are negative, negative experiences are attracted to you. But how are you supposed to be positive when negative things keep happening in your life?

You have to break the cycle. While it is certainly easier said than done, changing a negative attitude into a positive one can only be beneficial. No one is perfect and I am certainly far from it. Of course, it is normal to have bad days and feel negative emotions. No one can be happy and positive all the time. But what I feel is most important, and what I try to mirror in my life is making the conscious choice to have a positive attitude as often as possible.

It’s in the little things where negativity often lingers. Letting one minor inconvenience dictate how I viewed my day was taking a toll on my happiness. There is not a single situation that a glimmer of positivity can’t be found. If you fail a test, you are given an opportunity to improve. If you don’t get the job you wanted, there is a better job out there for you. You might have to work harder and longer but there’s always something better. There is always something to be grateful for.

My Life Motto

I’m also a firm believer in the fact that everything happens for a reason, when one door closes, three more open. So even when things aren’t going my way, I try to remind myself that there is a reason. I remind myself that God has a bigger plan for me, and his plan is better than my plan.

How to Practice Gratitude?

The easiest way to start practicing gratitude is by simply writing down a list of three things you are grateful for every morning. It is very beneficial to start the day off in a mindset of gratitude and abundance. It sets a good tone for the day. There are also various apps and journals that you can use for this purpose. A journal that I have used is the “Five Minute Journal”, and I really enjoyed it. I have also used an app called “Morning!-Gratitude Journal”. One tip I have for making these daily lists is to try and incorporate variety from day to day. Don’t say the same things all the time, come up with new, unique things to be grateful for.

-xoxo, jenny <3