The Importance of Practicing Gratitude Daily

A cornerstone to a healthy outlook on the world is the ability to appreciate where you are and what you have.  

Gratitude may not always come naturally as you fall into the usual patterns of daily living and take things for granted, but it can be a truly humbling experience and shift your whole perspective if practiced consistently.  

By simply stepping out of your normal routine and reflecting on how incredible even the most basic facts of life are, you can begin to view the world and your place within it in an entirely different, more positive way. 

Let’s start with the most obvious, your existence.  Your chances of being here today are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 400 quadrillion.  

The fact you are reading these words is a statistical improbability of the highest order.  

Not only did you make it here, but now that you’re here you have a brain filled with billions of neurons processing thought and emotion, a heart pumping thousands of gallons of blood, lungs allowing you to breathe twenty times a minute without ever consciously thinking about it, and senses to enjoy the world.  

This is all just table stakes, so let’s add on a bit.

If you have the capability to be reading this you likely live in a first-world country, have your needs of food, shelter, and clothing being met without issue, and can enjoy the most basic of freedoms without threat of disturbance.  You likely have the benefits of electricity, heat, indoor plumbing, and running water. 

Continuing on, you have a device in your hands that has 100,000 times more computing power than the one that took humans to the moon.  

You can connect with anyone around the world through the push of a few buttons within seconds or hop on a plane to see another corner of the globe within hours.  

You are living in the middle of the most scientifically and technologically advanced era of human progress and get to reap its benefits every single day from the comfort of your living room.  

Anything you would ever want to know is a few clicks away.  

Unfortunately, despite all of this, you have a challenge practicing gratitude every day.  Why is this?

Maybe you champion status or material possessions.

Maybe you seek validation through others.

Maybe you spend your time worrying about how much more than you someone else has.  

Do this over a long enough time horizon, and your gratitude muscle weakens over time.  

Even worse, your expectations become inflated and you lose that sense of grounding that frames things in a proper way.

Let’s fix this.

The most effective way to counteract this is to practice gratitude daily by finding reasons to appreciate the simple things.  

Whether it’s just spending a moment at the end of your day reflecting on something positive that happened or calling a close friend or loved one to tell them how much they mean to you, doing this is a powerful catalyst for success because it allows you to appreciate the things that truly matter.  

Don’t fall asleep until you’ve reminded yourself of at least one thing to be grateful for. 

Filling yourself with gratitude brings with a renewed sense of mental clarity, as you break free from the scarcity mindset and find the bridge to actually see the abundance of all you have sitting right there in front of you.