How To Have A Grateful Mindset

It can be pretty difficult nowadays to have a grateful mindset. Fact is the world just seems like it’s falling apart around us right now. 2020 has been a difficult year for a lot of people and to be honest, it’s been taxing on my own life.

I started out this year with a lot of hope that this was going to be an amazing year. Instead we’ve been stuck inside for pretty much the entire year so far. Now we make the choice to stay home, we’re extremely lucky to own our own businesses that already have us working from home.

However, I’m not blind to the struggles that others are facing right now.

Normalize The Process Of Grief

Job loss, pandemic, protests, deaths, and fear are an everyday occurrence right now. I get it and I’m not going to minimize those realities and fears and how real they are. I’m absolutely not going to tell you to face your fear by doing something reckless.

Instead I’m going to send gentle hugs over the internet and give you some tips to building a grateful mindset.

Please understand this, grief is absolutely normal and you should experience it when you face a loss. Don’t mask it, don’t hide from it, don’t shove it into a box and never deal with it. You must deal with your grief because in the end you can then let that grief go.

I’ve seen people hold on to their grief for years and decades and those people don’t live a happy life. In a lot of cases their inability to let go of their grief turns them to a paranoia of loss that actually pushes people away until they have no one.

Holding on to grief is not healthy for your mind and your body. Go through the five stages of grief and then let your grief go to focus on the happiness you have in your life.

What Is A Grateful Mindset

A grateful mindset is when you train your mind to naturally look for the good things in your present life. These things could be family, friends, food, items that make your life easier, things that help you escape, health, and love.

woman sitting on sofa writing in journal

Building a grateful mindset is much like building a positive mindset, however, gratefulness is geared more towards being present in your day to day life. A positive mindset helps you think positively about future things, a grateful mindset helps you think positively about present events.

How Being Grateful Makes You Happier

Having a grateful mindset helps to make you happier, studies on gratefulness show this to be the case.

The fact is when you spend time daily focusing on what you are grateful for and the positive aspects of your life as it is, you spend less time focusing on the things you don’t yet have. Instead you make moves to achieve those things knowing you are happy with what you already have.

Gratefulness does take a bit of emotional maturity, you have to be in tune with your emotions and understand and process them wisely. For instance, if you are holding on to grief from the loss of a loved one, practicing gratitude may not actually improve your life. You must first deal with that grief and then you can move into a place of gratitude.

Finding Gratefulness During Tough Times

We all go through tough times, be it a job loss, stress, financial problems, etc. While we may not be able to fix these specific problems within 24 hours, we can move through these problems, deal with the emotions, and come to a place of gratefulness.

If you’ve lost your job, you process the anger you may feel towards this loss. You let that go, then you focus on what you learned in that job. From there you decide what type of job you want next, how your past experiences make you perfect for that new job or business, and make the necessary moves to get that job.

By focusing on what you learned in your old job and seeing how you can apply this to a new – possibly better job, you aren’t focusing on the loss of the job. Instead you are focusing on the good that can come from this particular job loss.

Finding Gratefulness Everyday

I like to keep a journal, I write down what’s going on in my life, create to-do lists, and record what I am grateful for. I often feel this pressure to find new things to be grateful for each day, but the truth is, I’m pretty much always grateful for the same things.

My family, our home, food, my lifestyle, etc. I’m grateful for these things because they improve my life. Even if it always feels like you are grateful for the same things this is a good thing. It means you have stability and that is something to be grateful for.

Ways To Have A Grateful Mindset

There are a few ways that you can help yourself to have a grateful mindset. Some are better done daily and others are good to do every once in a while.

Keep A Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is a great way to record what you are grateful for. I personally find this to be my most favorite way to build a grateful mindset.

When you are first starting out with building a grateful mindset it can feel a bit weird. Having a private place to write down what you are grateful for is a great way to avoid awkward conversations of gratefulness while still focusing on being grateful.

Tell People You Are Grateful For Them

Start off first with the people you talk to on a daily basis. Your spouse, your kids, parents, or extended family. Tell them what things they do for you that you are grateful for.

For instance, I tell my husband regularly I am grateful for his reminders to eat breakfast or lunch. I often get wrapped up in work, my kid, hobbies, or chores that I will forget to eat breakfast or lunch and he reminds me to slow down and eat.

Being grateful for the actions of others and telling them actually helps to strengthen your relationships. It also helps in making you feel comfortable enough to talk about possible issues in the relationship.

Say Thank-you To Compliments

This one was a tough one for me. Saying thank-you to compliments helps to build your self esteem. For me accepting compliments was difficult because for a long time I didn’t feel I deserved them.

Getting into the habit of saying thank-you when you are complimented helps you to practice gratitude more regularly.

Focus on Gratefulness First and Last

Start your day with gratefulness and end it with gratefulness too. Waking up and focusing on something you are grateful for then going to bed being grateful helps to build a grateful mindset.

Keep your gratefulness journal on your night stand and wake up writing down what you are grateful for. At night write one to three things you are grateful for that happened that day.

Remind Yourself Of Your Accomplishments

Take some time to write down all of your accomplishments. How far you’ve come, the things you’ve done, and what you are proud of in your life.

Take some time once a week to look through your accomplishments and add to it as needed. This will help you to see more of the good that you’ve accomplished in your life and be grateful for the things or people that helped you to accomplish them.

Keep A Grateful Mindset

Keeping a grateful mindset just takes daily practice in gratefulness. It may take some time in the beginning to come up with things to be grateful for. With practice though it gets easier.

After practicing gratefulness daily you start to notice that you show gratefulness more easily throughout the day. Being grateful will boost your happiness and boost your self esteem.

What are you grateful for? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite self care and mindset boards.

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