Daily Gratitude Lists

A few weeks into staying at home I noticed that I was feeling pretty down. I basically stopped writing notes in my bullet journal every day since all of the days were essentially the same and I didn’t have anything interesting to record. Then I noticed that a few people I follow on Instagram were sharing short daily gratitude lists. Just a few short bullet points at the end of each day sharing things that they were grateful for. Sometimes these were big things, but more often than not they were small victories or something that just made the person smile. I thought it was a nice way to make yourself notice the good things that happen during the day (especially when the day itself doesn’t feel good), so I decided to try it out.

I started by keeping a note open on my phone to add to throughout the day when something happened that made me smile or made me happy and then at the end of the day I began to post these little lists to Instagram. This definitely helped improve my mood throughout the day since I was taking the time to notice the good things. As it went on it also helped me change my mindset about some things. For example, a pipe burst in our apartment complex (don’t worry, my apartment is fine) and our water was shut off for about half of the day. Understandably (at least I think), I was pretty upset, but when it came time to write my gratitude list for the day I included the fact that the management was so fast to address and fix the problem on the list. Obviously this didn’t fix the problem on its own–and even as I write this it sounds totally silly–but reframing the problem into something that was positive was really helpful for me.

This has also become part of the bedtime routine I’ve been working on for myself. Part of winding down has been typing up the highlights of the list to share on Instagram and talking about it with B. It really does help to end the day on a more positive note. I don’t know if I’ll continue this habit after this pandemic has ended or not, but for now it’s a helpful exercise to go through each day.