How often do you take time out of your day to think about all the wonderful things in your life? Some of you may be thinking, “Erhm, Erin… My life really isn’t that great.” Sure, there are probably things in your life that you wish were a little different. That doesn’t mean your life is absent of amazing things you can write about in a gratitude journal.
There are simple things that we overlook every day in our lives, things we often take for granted, that someone in the world wishes they had. Take, for example, maybe you have a car that runs and gets you from point A to point B. Maybe you have beautiful green eyes. Perhaps something as simple as two legs to walk on.
No matter who you are, you always have something to be thankful for. Keeping a gratitude journal helps remind us to acknowledge the good that we already have in our life. That is, instead of chasing the promise of tomorrow. This is how remembering to be thankful can improve your life.
1. You Start Looking for Positive Things
When you start setting time aside in your day to recognize the good things you have with a gratitude journal, you start looking for things to be thankful for. This may be harder for some than others at first, and that is okay. There is nothing too small to be thankful for.
As you continue this practice, you will inherently start to do this automatically throughout your day. Let’s say you brought in all your groceries in the house in one trip, you remember to be thankful for your strength. Perhaps you are reminded that your height allows you to reach certain things that others may have a hard time with.
Little by little, you will find yourself directing your attention to focus on those small things in your life that bring you joy time and time again.
2. You Change the Way Your Mind Works
This was one thing I found particularly fascinating, because well it’s supported by science. So how does practicing mindfulness through a gratitude journal change our minds exactly? Well, we all have what is called a Reticular Activating System or RAS. Your RAS is a little bundle of nerves connected to our spines that connects our conscious awareness to our subconscious awareness. One of the many responsibilities of the RAS is to identify and filter the information we receive every day.
Since we receive millions upon billions of bits of information every single day and can’t possibly focus on everything all at once, the RAS frequently filters out and makes us aware of only the information we are familiar with or have a direct need for. What this means is if you frequently complain, feel sorry for yourself, or can’t ever seem to get things to go your way, your RAS is going to continually give you the same information you are used to or that you are directly focused on.
Instead of reinforcing negative aspects of your life, a gratitude journal will help you rewire your RAS and your subconscious mind to work for you, instead of against you.
3. You Will Notice More Good Things
This is my favorite benefit of keeping a gratitude journal. It is so simple and so rewarding. Now that we understand how our minds work, when we start focusing on positive things in our lives, we will start seeing new opportunities.
This happens for several reasons. For one, we have trained our brains to be on the lookout for wonderful things. Our RAS is now filtering out negative things, and subsequently, we won’t notice those things as much as we once did.
Secondly, when you practice gratitude, you are actively focusing your intention on love and happiness. This raises your conscious awareness or vibration frequency. We all have a vibrational frequency. Depending on the speed of your vibration, you will only see things that align on the same energy field as you. Some people call this manifestation, but really it’s just the science of your mind.
Getting Started
You have the power to live the life you want, you simply just have to get your mind to stay focused on what you want until you get it. Starting a gratitude journal is simple. All you really need is paper and a pen.
Take 3 minutes out of your day to write down 3 things you are thankful for. It could be about a person, a relationship, your job, your house, yourself, or anything!
If you need extra guidance or gratitude journal prompts, check out our gratitude journal. Our 30-day gratitude journal is designed to help you spend a few minutes each day remembering the good things that are already in your life.
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