Have you ever come across a person who is always just so kind, a person so happy with their hand in life, someone who looks at every single sunset like it’s the first their eyes have seen? It’s easy to wonder what’s been put in the water they are drinking, but the answer is often a much more straightforward actuality; it’s gratitude.
Think of gratitude like the secret sauce; you could be eating the same burger (or watching the same sunset), but theirs has the elusive top-secret sauce, and yours doesn’t, so of course, theirs is incredible, and yours just seems, well, mediocre.
The thing about gratitude is that, of course, you feel it when something big and special happens or if someone does something nice for you. But you can also influence the amount you feel gratitude and increase it of your own accord. The more you embrace it, the more you experience it, and so you are dropped into this incredible cycle of appreciation, joy and happiness.
The wonderful thing about gratitude is that you can feel it for even the smallest, most mundane things. Perhaps it’s the feeling of wearing a comfortable outfit or when the sun shines over your morning coffee.
The power lies in regular practice; gratitude slowly changes the way you perceive situations by adjusting what you focus on. Rather than looking for the bad, you begin to look for the good, and over time, the good becomes the bigger picture, with the bad fading into the background.
Activity:
Create a Gratitude Album
List 10 mundane, everyday things that you love, things that genuinely make you feel happy and grateful. Every time one of these instances occurs, snap a quick picture and add it into an album, call it whatever you like, perhaps something like "Moments of Gratitude". As you move through the days, weeks and months, you’ll start to realise that these moments happen often and that there is just so much to be grateful for.