It’s easy to look at life and see what you don’t have. Not enough money, need a better car, job, life, etc. For some reason in the American culture, it is not as easy to be grateful as it is to complain about what is going wrong or what happened to us recently. Creating a daily practice of gratitude can change your life.

In an office, I used to work in, at the beginning of our bi-weekly staff meetings, I would have each attendee name one thing they were grateful for personally or professionally. Each person would take a piece of paper, write what they were grateful for and then say the gratitude aloud. We would then put the pieces of paper with the gratitudes written on them in a bucket. Doing this exercise changed the whole tone of the meeting in a positive way. You could see people relax, become happier, and show appreciation for people and things that they might have taken for granted had we not practiced this exercise.  At the end of the year, we would then revisit all the things we were grateful for over the year. It was such a positive and heart-warming experience.

Being grateful is not easy for everyone. I recall asking one colleague what they were grateful for and it was hard for them to come up with one single thing. I wondered what must be going on in this person’s life that they can’t find one thing positive in their life. If you too feel your life is in a similar situation, hopefully after you read this blog, you will find at least one thing to be grateful for.