I only learned about this idea of gratitude mindset about a year ago. And I resisted a bit only dipping my toes into doing the work, always looking around to see if it was effective. I had a successful business with my husband before and we didn’t have any mindset. It was all grind, all the time.

But it finally hit me that had we actually learned about mindset work nine years ago, our business probably would’ve been more enjoyable. Since this is Thanksgiving week, I want to share my “learning to have gratitude” practice over the last year. 

I seriously embraced managing my mindset around everything since May. I took a course on money mindset, one on growth mindset, another one on having a mindset for pleasure every day as an entrepreneur. As much as I embraced the training, embodiment seemed to be a real sticking point for me.

My coach Emily had assigned me to write everything great that had happened to me and my business since October, and I had 85 amazing things to be grateful for, but I still didn’t “feel it.” Why practising gratitude initially failed for me? I’m quite left-brained, analytical, and cerebral, and I really struggled with over analyzing everything I was learning.

I finally had a real breakthrough in August. I’m not sure what clicked exactly, but I had a switch inside. It’s so amazing that we can hear something a million times before we “get it.” This was no different. All of a sudden it started really making sense for my life. And I started writing gratitude lists. Not every day, but more frequently. so, here’s how to practice gratitude in my opinion.

I started being grateful throughout the day, not just in my journal.

Thankful for the way my day was going. Thankful for the dog hair on the couch, because I get to work from home with my dogs. I don’t do it perfectly every day, in fact, I often forget to be grateful, and maintain that gratitude mindset.

Now I am adding in a bedtime practice of being grateful for three things that happened that day.  I’m doing this because I can more easily remember when I tie a practice to an event or habit. I’m a work in progress.

The biggest lessons I have learned over the last year of doing this work, all point to knowing myself better.

What works, what doesn’t, what I have to put in place to be successful. I’m still working on it. It’s not perfect, but it’s so much better than before.

Because, I really have a lot to be grateful for. And it is so nice to remind myself daily. It has really changed my perspective on everything.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, celebrate all things with gratitude.