A Beginner’s Guide for Practicing Gratitude

Gratitude isn’t taught in schools. But it should be! Showing how thankful you are for what you have is quite possibly the number one skill for accelerating progression in life. It has been spoken of for thousands of years as a method of attracting abundance. It’s even touted as the key to the law of attraction. Gratitude is absolutely essential for living a life of love, joy, and fulfillment.

Many people new to the spiritual practice of gratitude may approach with skepticism. After all, it sounds pretty silly. If it worked such wonders, then surely everyone would know about it. And surely you would’ve experienced it? The vast majority of people say please and thank you and show general good manners, so why aren’t they living a life of abundance?

Well, there’s a difference between everyday etiquette, and genuine, from-the-bottom-of-your-heart gratitude.

What Can Gratitude Do For Me?

You have the power within you to achieve miracles! When you feel truly thankful for something, you’re feeling the love. Love is the highest possible frequency that a human can vibrate on and it attracts similar positive vibrations back to you. This is why it’s the key to the fabled law of attraction. 

Oprah Winfrey says, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” This, in a nutshell, is how gratitude can help you manifest the perfect life.

People who practice gratitude regularly report feeling more lucky, as if things just naturally go their way. But luck is just a name we give to universal laws that we don’t fully understand. Once you tap into your intuition and see the synchronicities everywhere, it becomes obvious that there is no such thing as randomness.

While you don’t need to believe in any specific god or religion to practice gratitude, it definitely helps to have some kind of higher power that you direct your thanks too. It’s common for spiritual people to use something like “the universe”, but whatever works for you is fine.

For a deeper understanding on the topic of gratitude, the laws of the universe, and the depths of spirituality, check out some of the books on this list:

With the brief introduction to gratitude out the way, here are the best five ways to practice gratitude to rapidly improve your life.

With the brief introduction to gratitude out the way, here are the best five ways to practice gratitude to rapidly improve your life.

Gratitude Journal

Keeping a gratitude journal is the single most effective way to maintain your gratitude practice and receive the most immediate benefits. If you do nothing else on this list, then make sure you follow this step.

Keep a pen and paper by your bed while you sleep. Every single morning, as soon as you wake up, write down ten things that you’re grateful for and why. You can write something like:

• I’m extremely grateful for ________ because ________
• I’m endlessly thankful for _________ because _________

Think about each and every aspect of your life as you go along. You might think that you won’t be able to find so many things to be grateful for, but that’s simply not true. If you’re struggling, check if you can walk, breathe, see the sun, or any other seemingly insignificant thing that you usually take for granted. You always have a reason to be grateful.

This works best in the morning because it primes you for the rest of the day. It gets you into a positive mindstate straight away and leaves you smiling as soon as you’ve woken up. 

Go back through the list once you’ve finished all ten and say “thank you,” for each one three times. Really feel the emotions of why you’re grateful. What would life be like without this thing? Why does it mean so much to you? Don’t hold back. It’s a personal practice and nobody else will see or judge you for it.

Keep A Gratitude Rock

The idea is to take a stone, or something small and smooth, and keep it near your bed. At night, switch your phone off and take the rock instead. Hold it in your hands and focus on the day’s events. Run through every single good thing that happened to you. Try to find the thing that you’re most grateful for. Most likely, you will run through several happy memories before you get to the one you’re most grateful for. This boosts your positive energy and helps you feel happy and thankful before bed.

It’s a great supplement to the daily gratitude journal -- one nightly task and one for the morning. It takes no longer than five minutes and helps you realize quite how joyful your life actually is.

If you want, you can get a crystal that’s perfect for this purpose. Check out these natural stones if you want your own gratitude rock:

These little stones are perfect for helping you let go of stress. They transform a negative mindset into one of positivity, amplifying gratitude to no end.

The Success Stone

Pyrite is one of the best crystals for prosperity. It’s a fantastic aid for manifesting money.

The Cleansing Stone

Both this exercise and the previous one are recommended by Rhonda Byrne in her book, The Magic. The whole book is filled with daily practices to increase your gratitude. It’s well worth a read.
 

Tell Your Loved Ones That You Love Them

This one sounds simple, but it’s remarkably rare. Especially in today’s digital world where people prefer texting over speaking face to face. There’s nothing quite like being told that you’re loved and valued. So why not tell the people you love regularly?

There’s a common saying that goes like this: “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Things can happen unexpectedly. Nobody wants to be left wondering if their loved ones knew that they were cherished. 

So spread the positive energy and let people know now! Give them a compliment. Tell them they look nice next time you see them or mention one of their strengths. Don’t force it. Ask yourself what you really love about this person and then let them know!

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

It might seem like hard work to be an optimist. It might feel unnatural, but it’s okay to start small. If something negative happens in your life, which it inevitably will at some point, then focus on the positives to come from it.

Concentrating on the negative aspect is easy. It’s almost a reflex. It’s a bad thing, so look at all this negativity it’s caused! But wait a second. Skim back through all your previous negative experiences. What did you learn from each one? How did you feel once you’d recovered? More often than not, negative life situations, like being fired or breaking up with your partner, are opportunities to grow. 

Learn from mistakes and every slump will become a lesson. Each time you encounter a hurdle, you’ll bounce back stronger than ever. Knowing this, you can diminish the severity of the hurt by focusing on the positive aspects. What will you learn this time?

Take a leaf out of the stoic’s book. If you can’t change the circumstances, then wasting energy thinking about it is just going to burn you out. If it’s out of your control, then focus on what you can control -- your reaction. You might have had a bad thing happen to you, but at least you’re still alive. At least, X, Y and Z didn’t happen. You still have A, B, and C to look forward to. One small setback doesn’t make life bad.

Be Present Each And Every Day

Take a moment every day to admire nature. If you’re stressed and busy and working in a bustling city with very little greenery, then try and get some fresh air. Don’t focus on work for a moment. Just breathe. If there’s a park nearby then that’s even better! Get somewhere where you can at least see some trees. Maybe even get a plant for your desk so that you can always have a little bit of beauty with you.

A nice stroll in nature is a fantastic detoxer. Your body absorbs lots of negative ions which help boost your mood and release stress. More than this though, being mindful is a fantastic way to apply the practice of gratitude 24/7. If you can be constantly aware of the present moment, not worried about the future, or pondering over the past, then you can achieve true happiness.

Being grateful for where you are right now in life, right this very second, that’s what counts. Many people assume that they have to work hard to get the perfect job or lifestyle, and then they can be happy. This is the wrong way to look at it. You have to be happy first and then you can enter the streamlined sense of flow and fast-track yourself to the life of your dreams. 

Being mindful and grateful for the present moment, every single second of every single day is the ultimate secret to fulfillment. 

Remember that gratitude is a way of life. Your power to manipulate your destiny is increased the more gratitude you have. So stick with it.