Gratitude: Why You Need It & How to Cultivate It

With the Canadian Thanksgiving coming up next week, I’ve seen a few posts and messages about gratitude, reminding us to be more thankful. Just like we should love people beyond February 14^th, gratitude is more than a holiday. It’s crucial we are grateful on the daily. Not only does it help us combat things like burnout (learn more about that here) but it provides many other benefits.

Interested to discover more? In this blog post you’ll learn what gratitude is, why it’s important, and how to make it part of your full and free (complete) life.

Gratitude as an attitude

So what exactly is gratitude? Gratitude means to give thanks, particularly for the grace we’ve been given – grace to live and to live well. Gratitude is a “state of being grateful”¹. This means expressing thankfulness through the way we think and feel about things and what we say and do. It’s a simple concept but not always easy to live out!

In everything vs. for everything

There is a notion out there that we should be grateful for everything. I’d like to debunk this. Why should I be grateful for a sickness? Or losing a job? What about a broken relationship with a loved one? Some people will say they’re thankful for those bad things because they learned something about themselves from it or they grew more in their faith as a result. Others will say they’re thankful for a bad life event because it “made them stronger”. Here’s some Truth for us today: we don’t have to go through a hardship to learn something about ourselves. There’s no need to suffer or lose something to learn a life lesson, increase our faith, or become a stronger person. We can be blessed, healthy, and whole, and grow, improve, and learn without going through a storm in life. We’re not called to be thankful for all things.

But we can be thankful in all things.

In it all

Let’s not assume everything in life is meant for our good. Sickness, financial hardships, fights and unforgiveness – these things aren’t good and aren’t things to be grateful for. We can, however, express gratitude in our circumstances. In every situation we can acknowledge all the good things we have in our lives. And, in every life event, we can regularly reflect on the grace we experience daily.

Benefits of gratitude

When adopted as an attitude (a way of thinking, impacting how we view the world), we can experience many of the benefits of gratitude. In this post I’ll focus on the top three. Together, these benefits have positive impacts of a person’s wellbeing – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

#1 – Brings peace & builds resilience

A very important benefit of gratitude is peace. And I’m not talking the kind of peace that’s dependent on people and circumstances. Gratitude can cultivate True peace – wholeness – that’s unaffected by the external factors of our lives. There is an assurance that comes with this peace, to the point where we maintain tranquility even in chaos. This peace overcomes sadness, anxiety, anger, frustration, and confusion.

That’s what being mentally, emotionally, and spiritually strong is all about! With this peace comes greater resiliency; we’re not easily shaken by the obstacles and trials life throws at us. How’s that? It’s due to that assurance of goodness in our lives. If we can see all the good things occurring in our lives, our mindset becomes “there will always be something good in my life”. Such a viewpoint makes it easier to withstand a negative experience.

#2 – Squashes comparison & breeds contentment

It’s pretty hard to be jealous of other people and what they have in life when we are grateful for what we have in our own lives. Gratitude helps us focus on all the positive things in our lives. It helps us see what we do have instead of seeing what we don’t.

If there’s one thing gratitude can definitely do and does well is help us see everything as the true gifts they are. As this change in viewpoints occurs, we become more fulfilled and satisfied with our lives. That feeds into the peace that comes with gratitude and the sense of wholeness we desire – contentment with who we are and our daily lives.

#3 – Helps others

Being grateful fosters more helping behaviour in human beings. People who express gratitude are usually kind, patient, and forgiving towards other people. They’re also generous; they usually give back to others in various ways because they see they have all these awesome things in their life to share.

Gratitude also helps others by fostering hope in them. Our behaviours show others that there’s always something good in our lives. This can be a powerful reminder to our friends, acquaintances and loved ones that there is good in their lives as well.

How to cultivate more gratitude

Alrighty, so now you know what gratitude is and what makes it such a great attitude to adopt. Now how do you actually be more thankful?

Gratitude is a mental, emotional, and spiritual practice that requires intentionality. People aren’t born full of gratitude. To have a grateful heart, you need to choose thankfulness every day.

Gratitude as a habit

I was reading about habits the other day and how you go about forming one. A great thing about habits is they become behaviours, which become a part of who you are. Another thing about habits is, for them to stick, you have to make your environment conducive for forming and maintaining a habit.

So, let’s talk about how you can adjust your external and internal environment to make this habit something you’re known for!

Your external environment: see it

If you show me something enough times or if I watch a video about how to do something, I’ll learn it better than if I’d read the instructions for it. I need to see something or have it described quite visually so that I learn it well.

Anyone else relate?

Some people are visual learners. For them to get it, they need to see it. Well, to learn a habit, some people might need to change their external environment so that they see things that promote the positive habit they’re learning.

What does this mean for you and developing gratitude?

You can try keeping a physical reminder of the things you’re grateful for. Some people use a daily journal. This helps them regularly see all the reasons they have to be grateful. Others write on post-it notes the things they’re thankful for and stick them all over their home or workplace.

To start practicing this, check out my FREE Gratitude Reminder Card that you can fill out regularly and have as a physical reminder to cultivate gratitude.

Your external environment: hear it

My son’s at a stage where he’s copying everything we say. Like word for word, ya’ll. It’s funny most of the time and I see that what he’s hearing he internalizes and expresses in how he behaves. He hears loving things and he behaves lovingly towards us and others. When he hears funny things, he tries to be funny.

It gets me thinking about how much of what we hear in our lives we’re internalizing and expressing in our behaviours.

When we hear the same messaging over and over, subconsciously we start to think, feel, act, and behave in ways that display the attitude of what we’re listening to.

So, take a good look at what you’re listening too. Is the music you listen to or the TV you watch regularly uplifting and encourage thankfulness? Are the people you hangout with grateful? If what you’re hearing doesn’t express much gratitude, spend less time listening to it.

Your internal environment: think it

As much as a person’s external surroundings are important in forming habits, the internal environment is just as essential. If you want to be more grateful, you’ll have to focus your thoughts on things you’re grateful for.

Focusing on the negative leads to fear, envy, discontent, overwhelm, self-pity, stress, fatigue, high blood pressure, anxiety, etc. Instead of keeping your eyes fixed on the problem, fix your mind on all the good things in your life. (Writing them down, like I mentioned earlier, will help keep them on your mind).

You can also try putting yourself in someone else’s shoes – not to feel sorry for them, but to realize how different your life could be. This will remind you of the great aspects of your life, the things you’re fortunate to have. Volunteering your gifts and time can also help you remember things to be grateful for.

The cool thing about changing your thinking is you’ll start wanting to see and hear things that support this mindset of gratefulness. Out of your heart (where your thoughts are), you speak, and soon your words will be words of gratitude. All these factors work together to impact your thoughts and help your mind stay in a state of thankfulness.

Your internal environment: say it

I’ve said it before in previous posts and I’ll say it again: what we think affects our feelings, which impact our actions, which become behaviours, which show the world who we are. Verbalizing our gratitude is part of the “actions” and “behaviours” that help us be more thankful people.

Alright, so where do you start?

Change your vocabulary and use words that convey gratitude. Such words include “blessed”, “appreciate”, “cherish”, “fortunate”, “grateful”, “honoured”, “value”, “treasure”, “thankful”, and “glad”.

Every day talk about something you are grateful for and regularly say a meaningful thank you to someone.

For those that have faith in Jesus, this also includes giving thanks to God in prayer – thanking Him for who He is in your life, all He’s done, and for the blessing to be called His own.

Remember, hearing things that express a grateful heart subconsciously makes you think, feel, act, and behave with gratitude. Who said you’re only listening to what other people say? What you say out loud, you hear and internalize. When the words you say express thankfulness, you start to adopt that grateful attitude, and it eventually becomes part of who you are.

I hope you found all this helpful! You can be a grateful person; it just takes intention on your part.

Let me know in the comments below how you express and cultivate gratitude! I’m always excited to learn a new way to help myself and others grow in gratefulness. And remember to share this post to help others!

Plus, if you’re ready to start practicing, get my FREE Gratitude Reminder Card that you can fill out regularly to help you develop a habit and lifestyle of gratitude.