The Weekly Challenge #024 Gratitude Journaling
Gratitude turns what we have into enough
👋 Hi there!
We have exciting news, we just renamed the this newsletter to ‘The Weekly Challenge’. Every week you get input for one self-improvement challenge. The focus is on taking action. This is what you can expect:
A short explanation of why we picked the topic.
An easy action plan.
Let’s get to it! 🚀🚀
👉 Today’s topic: Gratitude Journaling
Alright this is a topic that my girlfriend inspired me to write about when she asked: ‘What were you grateful for today’ to which I struggled to give an answer right away.
Up until that moment I had always dismissed gratitude journaling as a bullshit positivity self-help wellness guru exercise that coaches give to their clients in expensive seminars. However, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to sit down and do some research on gratitude journaling. So here are some reasons for why you should try gratitude journaling:
It improves your life satisfaction and in a study on university students even led to higher test results. Source.
Improves your sleep quality. Source.
Reduces stress. Source.
Increased Happiness. Source.
Improved relationships. Source.
Trust in others. Source.
Bottom line, there seems to be a growing body of research that supports positive effects of gratitude journaling. One part that was missing to me is that active gratitude journaling also helps you to make better life decisions. If you do this for a while and notice that there are certain areas of your life that never come up during your gratitude journaling, maybe it’s a good indicator that you should cut them from your life.
So even if you are a critical and sometimes sceptical person, give this a shot for 7 days to see how it impacts your life. Don’t forget, it’s just 7 days, if it doesn’t add value to your life, drop it.
🔥 This weeks Challenge
Engage in gratitude journaling for 7 days.
🤌🏻 But, but, how do I best do it?
Spend 5-15 minutes every day to write down what you feel grateful for. Here are some areas to consider:
Who am I glad for that they are in my life?
What is something I learned and am grateful for?
What about the way I make money brings me joy?
What good act deserves a thank you?
What makes me smile?
What am I looking forward to lately?
Something beautiful I witnessed recently.
What do I love about the way I grew up?
This list could be continued but if you run out of inspiration, just google ‘gratitude prompts’. Keep in mind, writing this down, might feel awkward in the beginning.
Good luck with this weeks challenge!