Starting a Gratitude Journal is a fantastic way to transform your life in 2024. If you want to make 2024 your year, immerse yourself in the world of a gratitude journal and see how the change unfolds in your mindset and approach to your life.
This article will help you set up your first gratitude journal, explain the benefits of gratitude journaling and help you overcome various challenges. Finally, this article will also cover a gratitude journaling template to help you get started!
The Importance of Gratitude Journaling
Starting a gratitude journal can be challenging, but there are many reasons why you should create one. Firstly, it is a beautiful way to look back and reflect on your life at a particular moment in time.
For instance, our lives are constantly changing, but the ability of a journal to capture the small moments that might have made you feel more fulfilled.
Next, a it allows you to develop emotional resilience, reducing stress. Also, gratitude journaling can help you process traumatic events and improve your physical health.
Additionally, The Greater Good Science Center published “The Science of Gratitude” in 2018 and found several benefits of practising gratitude. This included feeling less materialistic, more satisfied with life, less likely to experience burnout, and less fatigue, among other things.
Furthermore, showing up for yourself every day by practising gratitude is essential for self-improvement. You will start building trust, which is crucial to an improved sense of self-worth.
Last but not least, a gratitude journal has shown the effects of improved self-worth, improve sleep, and that it boosts positivity.
How to find a Daily Gratitude Journal
You have many options to find the perfect journal. You can purchase one online with prompts already written out for you and the calendar date. Some gratitude journals also last for as long as 5 years, so you don’t have to change it out.
This is perfect for those who are minimalistic! Additionally, these gratitude journals are perfect for people who do not want to think about their prompts beforehand. These guided journals are perfect for you! Here are some examples:
- The Five Minute Journal – 15,640 ratings, 4.5-star rating on Amazon
- Gratitude Journal – 3,600 ratings, 4.7-star rating on Amazon
My personal favourite is to create one yourself. I prefer doing this because I also like to journal regularly, and it feels more personal. This is perfect for people who like to be flexible and want more freedom in their journals. You can easily make one by finding an empty notebook or purchasing a cheap one from a dollar store.
On the other hand, if you prefer keeping everything digital, plenty of free apps are perfect for easy use. They keep track of your daily logs and give you badges for consistency. If you are motivated through external motivation, this is your best option. Not only this, but some apps will recap what has made you grateful in the past month!
Crafting Daily Entries
Gratitude journal prompts don’t have to be complicated. You can have prompts as simple as “I am grateful for X” and start writing like this. On the other hand, you can also focus on various things that made you grateful that day.
For instance, you can create gratitude journal prompts by focusing on what made you grateful in your relationships, work, and others. This can also be certain situations that made you feel fulfilled in your day, a random act of kindness from yourself or a stranger, and appreciating how much you have grown over the last year.
Some people prefer writing out these daily entries beforehand and filling out the prompts as the day comes, or you can be spontaneous and write it on the day. This is totally up to personal preference (if you are creating your gratitude journal).
The benefit of having daily entries is that they ensure consistency and allow you to pause every day. It is a perfect moment of reflection.
Real-Life Stories of Transformation
There are plenty of success stories of keeping a gratitude journal and how it transformed some people’s lives. This is not limited to individual stories; some are backed by science. What more convincing do you need?
Kacey Bradley expressed how a gratitude journal changed her life on the “Virtues for Life” website. She reported feeling more optimistic and had a positive attitude towards life overall. Moreover, she explained that it helped relieve her stress by focusing on the positives in her life during a spiralling moment of stress.
Secondly, Niharikka Kaur Sodi published an article on Medium and explained that she had used a gratitude journal for five years. She says she feels more positive and mindful towards her approach to life. Especially as an overthinker, a gratitude journal was particularly useful in fostering an optimistic mindset.
Lastly, Vogue India also published an article in 2018 where Jia Singh wrote consistently in a gratitude journal for 30 days and documented her journey each day. Overall, she began to feel less anxious.
Benefits of Consistency
The benefits of consistency in a gratitude journal are too many to count. As mentioned earlier, one of the benefits is an increased sense of self-worth. Why is this? Because you are consistently showing up for yourself.
Next, grateful people tend to be happier people. When you can count your blessings, you are more satisfied with the things that are available to you. Not only this, but when you look back at your gratitude journal, you can truly see the many things you can be grateful for in your life.
Another benefit of consistent gratitude journaling is the strengthened relationship you may feel. When you start to express gratitude for those in your life, you will notice the small things that they do, which can increase your approach to these relationships.
Overcoming Challenges of Gratitude Journals
Starting a gratitude journal sounds easy, but the consistency may be challenging due to various circumstances. Life is not always easy; events happen to us out of nowhere, and some days, we may need more time or energy to write.
To overcome the challenge of writing consistently, setting a routine of when and where you express your gratitude is suggested. For example, if you prefer to write at night, keep your gratitude journal on your bed, and when you are about to go to sleep, you will see the journal and remember to write down your thoughts.
If you find it very difficult to express gratitude, follow a pre-written prompt that you can find online or one provided to you in your gratitude journal. But do not put too much pressure on yourself. No one is perfect, and sometimes we can’t all perform as consistently as we would like, and that’s ok!
Keep track of how many days you’ve expressed gratitude. This is a form of motivation to keep up all the excellent work you’ve achieved!
Remember, a gratitude journal is just a suggestion; everyone can practice gratitude differently. If you have started a gratitude journal, let me know in the comments below!
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