2021: The Year of the Gratitude Journal

What are you thankful for? That 2020 is over!

No, seriously, think about what you’re thankful for! This is my focus for 2021. Living with a spirit of gratitude changes your life, but it’s not something that comes easy for most people. We have to be intentional about it. That’s why I’ve started a gratitude journal.

Gratitude Journal from Step Into Success

My 2021 Planner came with a small gratitude journal, pictured above, but there’s lots of places you can get one of these, or you can just use a spiral notebook. I find it easiest to write in mine every night before going to bed. Just a sentence or two is enough. Here’s some prompts for your daily entries:

Today I’m grateful for…
A person I’m grateful for is…
Something in nature I’m grateful for is…
The best thing that happened today is…
Something that made me smile today is…
I’m looking forward to….
A hobby I’m grateful for is…
It’s important to practice gratitude because…
A complement I’ve received lately is…
I’m grateful for this friendship…

You see? It’s not difficult to get started. If you need additional help, simply google “gratitude journal prompts” and you’ll have a huge list to get you started!

As a woman of faith, I also use those sale notification emails as an opportunity to practice gratefulness, and as a prayer prompt. I thank God for the clients he brings my way, that he prompts them to remember me when shopping, and that he would bless them. Gratefulness, therefore, takes our minds off ourselves.

Research at Harvard Medical School found that practicing gratefulness makes you more optimistic, feel better about your life, exercise more, and have fewer visits to the doctor, even! I hear that some doctors are even recommending keeping a gratitude journal to their patients as another method to improve their overall health!

As far as business goes, there are many reasons why being grateful is good for business. People enjoy doing business with grateful people. Being grateful takes your focus off of yourself and onto your clients, which drives you to better customer service. Grateful people attract grateful people, which is a good place to be in life as well as in business. Need more reasons? Just google, “does being grateful increase sales,” then pause for a moment and be thankful for the clients you already have and the information you are learning.

Here are some examples of gratitude journals, but keep in mind you can also use a spiral notebook: