As 2024 approaches, those who have had a tough year may take advantage of the new year to start a self-care and wellness journey to improve their mindset. Practicing gratitude is an essential part of such journeys, and my family and I have attempted to do so by recording one thing we are grateful for each day for a year.
Anyone who has ever been on, or attempted, a self-care and mindfulness journey knows that regularly identifying little things they are grateful for is crucial in maintaining a positive outlook on themselves and their life. Naturally, we tend to take simple aspects of everyday life for granted, but stopping and identifying how grateful we are for the privileges that we have allows us to have a positive mindset amidst any adversity or troubling times.
I was never a particularly positive person until I began to seek positivity in everyday moments. Still being young and emotionally immature my freshman and sophomore years, I often let little mishaps ruin my positivity until one day, my sister came up with an idea. She cut up little slips of paper, grabbed a jar and labeled it “Gratitude Jar.” She told us that every day, we should write down something we’re grateful for, write our name and the date and put it into the jar.
At first I was skeptical and was too stubborn to do it every day. Eventually, though, I found myself looking forward to taking the time to reflect on my day, pinpointing one small moment that made me smile and putting it into the jar.
Each of us recorded simple things like “It’s Friday” to bigger things like “I got a five on my AP Chemistry exam!” As time went on, friends and family who came over started to join in too.
At the end of the year we compiled all the slips of paper into framed collages to look back on all the simple yet nice things we may have forgotten about. Not only was it sweet, but personally, it taught me that even through bad days, there are always small elements of my day that I can be grateful for to maintain a positive attitude.
Therefore, I recommend to anyone aiming to practice gratitude and to be more positive in 2024 to record something in their day that made them smile, something that they appreciate or something they tend to take for granted. At the end of the year, they can even be put into displays so that all of life’s little positive treasures can be compiled on the wall for everyone to see.
