(Apparently I didn’t grasp the whole ‘scheduling posts’ thing correctly like I thought I had…. So this has been sitting in my drafts for nearly two months – whoops!)

When I started this blog, I decided I was going to keep a list of blog ideas saved on my laptop. One of those ideas was to write something about gratitude – I had the title ‘An Attitude of Gratitude’ saved on my list and then later changed it to ‘Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude’ yet when I looked back over my list later, I thought it was such a cliché, cheesy title for a post and I pushed it to the bottom without much thought. However, over the last week or so I have seen SO many posts on Instagram in particular around this theme. I follow a lot of lettering, positive quote type accounts and posts have been popping up left, right and centre, and so I decided to take it as a sign that maybe the post wasn’t as cheesy as I thought it was.

There’s an entire branch of Psychology known as ‘Positive Psychology’ – and in Positive Psychology research, gratitude is strongly associated with greater happiness. It helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve health and deal with adversity. Whilst we cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship on gratitude and well-being, most studies on the topic have suggested a strong link! There are other studies suggesting that gratitude can also improve relationships between people and, actually, people felt more comfortable expressing their concerns about their relationship – as well as causing people to feel happier overall about the relationship.

When we have an attitude of gratitude, we begin to appreciate everything in life – even the little things. It’s not that everything we have is great and lovely and that life is all sunshine and rainbows, but more that despite the rubbish that also goes on, they purposefully make a conscious decision to be thankful. There are so many ways that we can try to cultivate this kind of grateful attitude – and actually a majority of them are relatively small steps that we can make in our daily lives.

So, how can we cultivate an attitude of gratitude in our life?

1. Try to keep a gratitude journal – make a conscious effort to try and choose between three and five things every day that you are grateful for. They can be small things like ‘I got to read some of my book’ or ‘I went out for coffee’, or they can be bigger things like ‘I got to spend time with my family’ or ‘I had a good therapy session that really helped me’. It can be hard to try and pick out the positives when life feels crappy, but I can guarantee that there are little things in every day if you look hard enough. Sometimes my list simply reads ‘I stayed alive, opened my curtains and got dressed’ – seemingly small things that most people probably do without thinking about, but that can be excruciatingly hard when you’re struggling with depression.
2. It’s sometimes nice to write thank-you letters: both to other people in your life, but also to yourself. It’s always nice to know that someone appreciates you, and so if there is someone in your life that you don’t think you say thank you to enough, try writing them a letter – I can guarantee it will make their day! There’s something cathartic about writing, and it’s something that the recipient can keep and look back on. Once in a while it can be nice to also write yourself something too!
3. Meditation is a great way to focus on the present without being judgemental. Having mindful moments might sound like such a stereotypical mental health team type suggestion, but there is so much research that suggests that being mindful, and meditating is a great way to improve your mental health. Spend some time being mindful about and meditating on the things in your life that you are grateful for.
4. If you feel like writing down daily positives or things, you are grateful for is too big an ask (completely understand if you feel this way – I did for a long time and it took me months before I was able to consistently manage my list on a daily basis) then give a weekly list a go. Try to spend some time every week writing down the things that have happened that you are grateful for – I always do mine on a Sunday evening as it feels like a nice end to the week.
5. Making a gratitude jar might sound like an extra cheesy, school type activity but when you reach the end of a year and can look through all your moments that you’ve been grateful for, it is an incredibly humbling and positive experience. It helps you to realise that there have been more positive moments than you may otherwise have thought. Spending some time decorating a jar is also a really good distraction if you are struggling.
6. If you have children, then a fun activity for the whole family to engage in is to make a gratitude tree – go on a walk and choose some long sticks and branches that can be arranged in a jar. Then, cut out paper in the shape of leaves or flowers that can be used to write down grateful moments on and add them to the tree. Over time the number of leaves and flowers on the tree that appear will help you all to appreciate the positives in your life.

There are so many other ideas and suggestions that can help you to have a more deliberate attitude of gratitude – all you have to do is google ‘how to be more grateful’ and many more suggestions will appear. So, if I haven’t mentioned anything here that you think might be helpful for you then definitely give it a quick search to see if you can find something that fits! Keep on trying to build this into your daily routine and gradually it will become second nature – and hopefully you’ll being to feel the benefits soon too!

All my love,

Anna x