Tweak Your Week: What Do You Have To Be Grateful For?
Tweak Your Week: What Do You Have To Be Grateful For?
Tips, tricks and tweaks to help founders each week. You’ll be surprised what a difference these tiny experiments can make.
Good morning Upsiders!
You may already know that regular journaling is a great tool for building self-awareness and coping with daily pressures, but did you know that regular gratitude journaling can be transformative and amazing?
Hang on, I hear you say, what’s gratitude journaling?
Glad you asked! Gratitude journaling is the practice of identifying and writing down what you are grateful for on a regular basis. It reinforces certain brain patterns, training you to focus on the positive things in life and build resilience to the negative.
Focusing on gratitude in this way can have a huge impact on your wellbeing.
In fact, a series of studies that examined the connection between gratitude and happiness found that “gratitude … facilitates coping with stress and adversity [and] not only
makes people feel good in the present, but it also increases the likelihood that people will function optimally and feel good in the future.” 1
Not bad, huh?
Gratitude journaling can create a powerful positive feedback loop that spirals upwards as gratitude leads to happiness leads to gratitude…
So, this week, we’d like you to take up the challenge and start a regular practice of gratitude journaling either on paper or digitally - the format doesn’t matter; the intention and the practice do.
Here’s how to do it:
Set aside a time each evening to reflect on your day and identify three things that you are grateful for. It can be as little as 5 minutes, or as much as an hour - you’ll find what works for you once you get started.
After reflection, write the three things down. You can use bullet points or flowing paragraphs - your journal is your own. Think about what made you smile, or something that pleasantly surprised you. Who made life that little bit easier for you today? Did you achieve a tiny goal or manage to set a new one? These are some ideas to help you recognise the things that might warrant your gratitude.
Be specific. Writing “I am grateful for my health, my family, and my home” everyday will become repetitive and stale very quickly. Dig more deeply and name the precise thing or person that made you feel good.
Shake it up. Writing about different spheres in your life will also keep your enthusiasm for gratitude journaling high. Maybe work one day, hobbies the next, family another, and so on. You move in many different circles and there is room for gratitude in all of them!
Don’t despair. Even if you’ve had an absolute shocker of a day, take a little time to sift through your experiences and pinpoint something in your life to be thankful for. It might be as simple as the wag of your dog’s tail when you walk in the door or the expectation of the new day to come. You’ll find something every day if you just look.
Notice a difference?
Tell us how you go. Share your experiences - ‘mazing or meh - with the Upside community.
We’re all a work in progress.
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Upside Founder Programs are proudly supported by KPMG High Growth Ventures and Microsoft Australia.
