Be grateful

Be grateful for helps you notice the good in

your life.

 

Within a few days of starting this

habit, you will notice that it gets a lot easier to

think of five things to be grateful for, and

pretty soon you’ll be overflowing your list. I

like to insist on a minimum of five things but

keep going for as long as I feel like listing

things.

As you focus on things you’re grateful for,

listing them becomes easier because you’re

training your brain to notice them. Your brain

processes zillions of pieces of information

every day, and it has to filter out the

unimportant stuff, which is most of it. But if

you know that later you’ll be making a list of

things to be grateful for, your brain no longer

discards those as unimportant; instead, it

notes them. When this happens, suddenly the

world seems a lot more positive—you start

noticing so many more things to be grateful

for.

This also gives you twice as many chances to

enjoy the positive experiences of your life: now

you’re more likely to notice each positive

experience and appreciate it as it’s happening,

and you get to enjoy it again when you think

about it for your gratitude list. Furthermore, by

focusing on the positive right before going to

sleep, you put your mind into a positive mode

for the night