My theme for this month is thankfulness. I want to challenge myself to be thankful for everything. I’m not the best at always having a positive attitude or always expressing thanks, but the more I practice, the easier it gets.

This summer I started to keep a bullet journal, and I decided to try to keep a gratitude log, which is something that I’ve never done before.  I saw one layout where someone wrote down one thing they were thankful for each day. I didn’t think that writing down one thing was enough for me, so I challenged myself to write three things that I was thankful for each day.

At first, it was hard to think of at least three things I was thankful for each day. Something that surprised me was: the things that I was thankful for were little things. The small details were the things that made a difference in my day. A small detail that would make me smile.

For example, last Friday,  when I walked out of my class, I heard the band play our fight song. I was in band in high school, and it made me remember when I used to play that same melody on my flute. Hearing that song took me back. It made me remember how much fun I had with my band friends at football games. We were so spirited. We had so much enthusiasm. As I was walking back to the Union Bus Station, I realized that I was smiling because of this memory— all because I heard those same songs that we used to play in high school. Realizing that, I wanted to make sure I wrote this down in my gratitude log.

There was one day when I looked at my gratitude log, and the whole page was filled. September 1st — 10th filled up a whole page, and each day I had written three things I was thankful for. That means that I had written down 30 different things that I appreciated. 30 things–that’s a lot (for me, anyway). Looking at that whole page and skimming over it made me realize how God was taking care of me. He provided all of those little things for me. If I hadn’t written them down, I probably wouldn’t have remembered any of them. Which reminds me, it’s so easy to be ungrateful. It takes intentional effort to express gratitude, and keeping a gratitude log has been a tool that’s helped me be more grateful. On bad days, my gratitude log would help me remember the good things that happened that day, and remembering those good things–even if they were just small things–helped pull me out of my negative attitude.

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I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment below about any of these following questions:

  • Have you ever kept a gratitude log? If so, how did it help you?
  • Do you think it’s easy to be ungrateful?
  • What are some other ways that we can remind ourselves to be thankful?

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I’m thankful for this supportive WordPress community.

I hope that this has encouraged you in some way,

-SN