Let me set the scene…

A grumpy teenager sits in his room thinking about how unfair life is. He can’t get the girl he wants, the job he wants, he’s angry that he does not have enough money and is resentful about the fact other people around him have more than him.

For decades I grew up resentful, angry and unhappy. For some reason, My go-to response in life was a negative one, ever since I was a young teenager. I was not consciously ungrateful, but instead just didn’t see what I already have, or what the world had to offer me. One thing you’ll hear mental health bloggers talking about a lot is gratitude. However, many of them don’t tell you how to practise gratitude properly. They don’t explain why it’s so important for having good underlying mental health and a strong perspective.

You see, for many of us, we grow up only thinking about what we don’t have, what we should have and what we need to have. It is very rare that you see somebody talking about how lucky they are, even when it seems like they don’t have much in traditional terms of success.

 

Gratitude Ain’t Always Easy But It’s Gotta’ Be Done!

 

I’m not going to start off by telling you that acting grateful every day of your life is easy like most people do. It’s not. In fact, it can almost feel impossible sometimes. We’re only human. However, the reason why everyone goes on about gratitude so much is that it’s super important for an emotionally stable mind and your overall perspective.

Why is gratitude so important (or vital in my opinion)? For me, gratitude on every level of it’s meaning is important because it’s the basis of how we perceive the world. It’s the basis of believing you have nothing or you have everything.

We go to jobs we hate. We look at what other people have or the money they have in comparison to ourselves. We look at others so much that we devalue what we already have right in front of us.

Maybe it’s the world we live in, or maybe it’s the way we are brought up. It’s important to strive for more and reach for self-development but there can be a cost to all of that…

…a lack of gratitude.

When we reach one goal, we instantly want more. Rather than reflecting on how lucky we are, there is something inside of us (hello ego) that keeps us marching on for further achievement. So can the two exist together? I believe they can but only when gratitude is intentionally performed. 

I’m not going to lie and say I don’t let my ego get to me sometimes, some things just can’t be completely eliminated. I still find myself wanting more and more at the cost of appreciating what I already have but I make an effort to try and be grateful when I feel this happening.

I’m also not going to lie and tell you this is always easy, especially when others are rubbing things in your face. However, practising gratitude is vital for having a healthy outlook on your current circumstances.

Gratitude has never been more valuable. In a world where we can get our meals delivered in minutes, tv on demand and dates through apps, things can seem like they have less value.

In my own quest for an energised mind, I found myself craving more substance in a world of ‘churn and burn’. That’s why being consciously grateful is so important.

Even though it doesn’t feel natural to stop and think about how the value you have in your life, it really boils down to remembering the old saying;

“It could be worse!”

…because it literally always could be, and that’s the bottom line.

 

The aim of gratitude is to be grateful for what you have. The art of gratitude is being able to do this when everything inside of you tells you that you can’t.

 

To me, that’s the point. It’s easy to be grateful when things are going well for you. It’s hard if not sometimes almost impossible to act grateful when things are falling apart. To practise gratitude you have to be able to do it when things are tough. That’s when it’s most beneficial because it can switch your perspective. We’re all grateful when we’re doing well (most of us) but not so much when the opposite is the case.

 

So how do you practise gratitude properly?

 

How To Practise Gratitude Properly

 

So how do you practise gratitude in a way that will change your perspective? There are plenty of ways to practise gratitude without feeling cringy or weird about it. Practising gratitude is something that you probably already do each day without realising it. For example, somebody might do a nice gesture, you might get lost in your partners gaze or you may feel the deep love you have for a child.

To bring gratitude to the surface though, you need to do certain things in daily life with intention;

 

1. Being Grateful For Your Challenges

 

 

One of the quotes I live my life by is one of the solid old teachings from Buddha – “Life is suffering.” It’s a little more complicated than that but that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. Instead of seeing challenges in terms of;

“Life is so unfair to me”,

I choose to accept that the nature of life is cruel and there will be unavoidable challenges. Many of us want easy lives that divert from sadness and challenges but that is simply not what happens to anyone, unfortunately. Because I accept this fact, it is easier to deal with adversity because I have already anticipated it in whatever form it presents itself in.

Instead of living in fear of challenges, we have to learn to appreciate them because without them we cannot grow larger. We can’t grow larger than the problem if it arises again in the future. It is just like a muscle under intense strain. The fibres must grow in anticipation of that stress returning in the future. If we never had challenges in life, we would never change and evolve.

 

2. Consider Keeping A Journal

 

Consider practising gratitude in a daily journal. You don’t have to write a ton of paragraphs each day to keep up to date either. It can be as simple as writing a sentence about what you’re grateful for. The best time of day to do this is in the morning. That’s because you can put yourself in a grateful mindset from the get-go. If you need some gratitude journal ideas, get some inspiration here.

 

3. Finding Beauty In The Smaller Everyday Things

 

Gratitude is easy when you win a big prize, for example, However, the only way to enjoy enrich each day is to find time to appreciate everyday things. So often we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. The truth is, we’re lucky every day, even if we might feel as if our lives are hard and unfair.

Here’s an example;

Some time ago I was struggling with finding a job that would pay my bills and at the same time make me feel like I was doing something worthwhile. Truth be told I had to do a job I hated just to stay afloat at that time. It felt as if I was trapped and depression soon followed. I felt as if money was all that mattered, and all I was doing was killing myself for the sake of a paycheck.

I had fixated myself on one thing.

Amongst all this, I had forgotten what was right in front of me. I had tunnelled my vision into the depression that the job had caused me.

I had forgotten that I still had a loving partner at home, an amazing son and a place to live. Why is it we ignore what’s right in front of us?

I ignored every day small things that gave me life…

I still had my writing and my art. I still had my days off that I could spend with my family and friends. I still had my phone to stay in touch with people, my health and the clothes on my back. During that time, I ignored all of these things. My perspective was all off balance.

I had told myself that this job was all that mattered in my life because it was the current thing that was causing me pain.

The depression seeped into every area of my view at the time and caused me a distorted reality.

 

4. Focus On That Which You Normally Ignore

 

 

It is easy to be grateful for your new car or your friends. It’s usually harder to be consciously grateful for the things we use every day. To practise gratitude properly and consistently, I have found focusing my attention on the bigger things valuable.

When I feel like I have nothing to be grateful for (maybe I’m having a bad day) I turn my attention to the things closest to me.

I turn to my arms hands and mind.

I remind myself how lucky I am to have a functioning body that allows me to do almost anything that I want to do. With my hands I can write, with my legs I can walk and with my mind, I can think of ideas and turn them into real things.

So many people are born with disabilities or get injured in some way that stops them from having a fully functioning body. It is easy to take these things for granted every day and it’s only until we lose them do we regret not being more grateful.

So often we only appreciate things we have until their gone.

So even if it feels like everything around you is crap, you still have the ability to do hundreds of thousands of things all because you still have a functioning healthy body.

You still have the default setting that allows you to get back up and try again or do something different.

Those that do not have what you have hold the potential to become envious of you and vice versa. We all have things that we overlook each day that we need to pay more attention to.

 

5. Think Of One Thing A Day

 

If you’re not the journaling ‘type’, consider thinking about one thing your grateful for each day. Maybe you’re run down from the daily grind and feel like you’re in a rut. I won’t lie and say that I always feel like being grateful but there’s one thing that we can all do to practise gratitude every day and that’s thinking of one thing.

You can do this in the morning or in the evening as long as you remember to do it. You don’t need to write it down if you don’t want to, but try and think of just one thing. Once you’re in the habit of trying to give it a few minutes each day you can then start to commit to adding a few more things no matter how big or small.

Quick tip: write it on a sticky note and stick it on the wall!

 

6. List What You Want To Achieve

 

So as well as listing what you should already be grateful for mentally or physically each day, the fact is we’re still mumbling imperfect humans that need things to achieve so that our lives have some kind of meaning. That’s why it’s important to have a vision of what you want to achieve in your life. These don’t have to be big things, but doing this allows you to be grateful for the journey you’re on.

For example, I started this blog to help people with their mental health and let them know they’re not on their own. I had an aim in my mind that I wanted to talk honestly and give the best advice I could. I wanted this blog to reach people and affect them in a positive way. So I decided that I’d set myself some goals so that I’d enjoy the fact I had a journey ahead of me.

I wanted;

 

• A few hundred email subscribers in the first year
• A few hundred people coming here a month

 

These weren’t big goals but they were an outline for what I wanted to achieve. So often we beat ourselves up for not having what we want. We tell ourselves that we must be failures if we don’t get what we feel we need in a short space of time. The truth is, end goals take a long time to achieve so you better be grateful for the journey because that’s the time when you’re actually learning. I’d rather be chasing a goal whilst failing and learning then achieving it and having nothing left to do.

To be totally honest, this blog didn’t grow very big at all at first. I thought that I’d have more visitors than I did after a year. I felt kind of inadequate that I’d put in so much work but no one was reading it. Then, after a bit of time, more and more people started finding it. I learned to enjoy and be grateful for the learning experience as I went along.

This can be applied to everyday life. Each day might seem pointless and mundane but in truth, it’s another chance to learn something that will equip you for the next day.

 

7. Every You Do Matters

 

If you want to really know how to practise gratitude, you have to understand that everything you do matters. As in, see everything you do as mattering. As mentioned above, there are days that seem mundane and pointless. In reality, every day is another day you won’t get back. If you want to practise gratitude and have a meaningful and satisfying life, everything you do matters.

What you tell your kids after school – matters.

What you tell yourself in the morning – matters.

The compliment you give that stranger – matters.

Waling to the store – matters.

Sending that email – matters.

If you treat everything that you do like it matters, you’d be practising gratitude constantly. This is easier said than done because we all have bad days but it’s been a game changer for me. It’s about being mindful of what you say and do. It’s about understanding that everything you do has a rippling effect on the people and the world around you.

This is literally the path to living a meaningful life with the added effect of gratitude for what it is you do each day.

The negative thoughts that you tell yourself have a drastic impact on your psyche as do the positive ones.

 

8. Tell Them Right Now

 

 

We all have things we wish we’d told people. Whether they move away or they pass away there are things that haunt us because we didn’t say them at the time. We’re a funny species because we all harbour the same belief – we’ll always have more time.

Truth be told, we don’t know how much time we’ll have. If you love someone, tell them right now, and do it for no reason. Not only does it feel amazing for both of you, and because it’s out of the blue, it’s a powerful way to practise gratitude. Don’t save it for special occasions.

If you appreciate a friend, tell them right now. You might think that they already know you appreciate them but communication isn’t always that clear. Sometimes we assume people know how we feel.

So go and tell that person what you’re thinking right now because they might not really know.

Here’s to your success,

Sean