Skip to main content

Gratitude


I am practicing writing things I am grateful for in my Happynichi (ok, I don’t doodle enough in it to be a real one… as I have said before I need to work on it). In doing this, it makes me look for more things that make me grateful. This has given me a different perspective on my life.  I feel like I am getting less frustrated and enjoying life a little more.  I sit at my planner at night and take the time to jot down my thoughts.

This is where the keeping a mood tracker or gratitude list fits in.  Looking back on things that make you thankful gives you that feeling again.  I know we don’t all write just our plans in our planners, but we write things that happened and make us feel a certain way.  We like to make our planners pretty and filled with color because they make us happy, more than likely we already are jotting down those grateful moments.

I also think that sometimes we might not be able to fully express our gratitude to the person we want to.  Like when you go to Aldi and there is already a quarter in the cart or if you are fortunate enough to have someone pay it forward in the drive thru line. Sometimes you thank someone and you don’t get a response… its ok, you know you did it. They know you are grateful and sometimes they don’t know what to say.

This brought me back to a meeting I had at an old job where we had a guest speaker from The Mayo Clinic come and talk to us about gratitude, Amit Sood, MD. Dr. Sood has some great articles on the Mayo Clinic website as well as studying happy people. In this session, he gave us assignments for the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning, before we even get out of bed – the easiest one is to think of 5 people you are grateful for and why you are thankful for them.  To take those few minutes, laying there thinking about people and being thankful to them, it gives you a positive start on your day. I try to use this practice every day; it doesn’t have to be people either.  Eventually you start to feel repetitive, but you can use moments or pets.

Resources other things to look at:




Image credit:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Addendum to Meal Planning

So, I was planning last night and as I work on my planner I also watch You Tube videos to get inspiration.   As I am flipping through the people, I see that Kell of Plan has a Meal Planning Video, it has changed my way of thinking about meal planning! She gave me inspiration and I am excited for planning my meals for this next MONTH! Check out her video here … So instead of using a mini page and drawing out my month, I created this printable for 2 months’ worth of planning. Just print 2 sided, flipping on the short side if you can, otherwise having 2 sheets will work too.   Just trim them down to size and viola; you are good to go! I liked her idea of trimming the post-it’s to fit in the squares and then you can move them to your planner if you wanted, or you can write it directly on the calendar itself. Can’t wait to see if this changes my life! J
Post a Comment
Read more

Do What Brings You Joy!

As I flipped through Instagram there were many times when I doubted my talents, and myself and I questioned whether I should continue to do these things. The good news is that since I started my planner Instagram I have felt more empowered and have gotten such positive feedback on the things I do.   I remember telling my husband I was going to start my page and he said don’t take anything personally.   I promised that I wouldn’t, and I believe that he has prepared himself for the worst.   Luckily, this group of people are a wonderful group and for the most part, live by the golden rule.     Starting planning has really made me start thinking about things differently and I am starting to try things that I haven’t done for YEARS. I am drawing again, I practice hand lettering and feel like I can actually do it, and it is all making me a better person and want to be a better mom.   My son has started to want to play and make things with paper and I ha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Doodles

I love doodles, I want to be a better doodler, but all I see to draw are these odd shaped “blobs” inside one another. I find it relaxing and it keeps my hand moving. I feel like it helps me with some hand eye coordination because I try to get the one line as close as I can without touching the one next to it. These are full 8.5" X 11" papers when I doodle these... I have been practicing a doodle a day to describe my day in my planner.   It is fun to look back on the day and pick the one that I can draw. I have been practicing doodling various things.   I am not so into the flowers, I really enjoy the space rockets and animals.   I don’t think that I am good at it, but like everything, you won’t improve if you don’t practice. As I type this, I think of my son, he draws EVERYTHING. We have pictures that he has drawn all over the house and often go to bed with a cute little picture he drew for us for a surprise.   I love it! I need to be more like him a...
Post a Comment
Read more