How to Make a Gratitude List – a Simple Guide
People often say we should be grateful. Of course, we agree. But where do we begin? In today’s blog ~ How to Make a Gratitude List – a Simple and Complete Guide ~ you will learn how to make a gratitude list. Before we consider how though, we need to think through a few reasons why it is important to make one.
Throughout this blog, a gratitude list refers to a list of events, items, or people for which you are grateful.
Why Gratitude Lists Are Important
Benefits the spiritual growth process
As we discussed in an earlier blog, gratitude is a key indicator of your spiritual health. As you walk in the Spirit and obey the will of God, gratitude flows out of your heart. The Bible emphasizes in everything to give thanks.
Helps your mind to focus
Maintaining a regular gratitude list helps keep your mind focused throughout the day. The regular practice of writing down a certain number of things for which you are thankful helps keep your mind focused on those things throughout your day. In this sense, gratitude is like a muscle that you regularly exercise. As you do, you begin to use your gratitude muscle more often because you become much more aware of those things and ways that you can be grateful.
Enhances your discipline of self-counsel
As part of our daily disciplines of striving to walk with the Lord, gratitude lists help enhance self-counsel. In self-counsel, the follower of Christ takes the Word of God and focuses it on areas of needed growth, encouragement, or change. A gratitude list in this use helps you focus on what rules your heart in a particular moment or season of time. As discussed in an earlier blog, it is easy to move past contentment to discontentment.
Helps move you past being problem-focused and man-centered to gratitude-focused and God-centered
For most people, it is normal to be anxious or worry about their problems. As our minds drift toward our problems and difficulties, we can easily become a problem-focused person and become man-centered in our approach to people and problems. By this I mean that we forget God’s sovereignty, providential protection, and His desire for glory in the midst of our daily living. The gratitude list helps us focus those things together. We begin to see God’s purpose in life through circumstances better as we focus on the things for which we are grateful.
Helps change your feelings and emotions
Your feelings and emotions represent your interpretation of the circumstances in your life. As you are in a particular situation or circumstance, you think about it, desire something in the midst of it, and love something in the midst of it. Simply stated, you think, desire, and love. Together, I refer to these three inner man responses as your interpreting the situation. From this interpretation you respond with additional thinking, greater affections, and emotions/feelings, as well as words and actions. The gratitude list influences the way you think and you desire. From this influence, your interpretation of your circumstance changes, and with that, your feelings and emotions change.
How to Make a Gratitude List
In order to better understand making and maintaining a gratitude list, let us consider it in two ways: 1) What makes for a good discipline, and 2) What should be in it.
How to Make a Gratitude List a Good Life-Impacting Discipline
- Set regular time to work on your gratitude list. You could choose adding to your list daily at a specific time every morning, every evening, during lunch break, or another convenient time. Possibly working on the list three times a week would be better for you. Whatever you choose, just make it a regular exercise or discipline.
- Pick the media of your choice for making your list. There are all kinds of options for making your list: a gratitude journal, a dedicated notebook, file on your phone, computer file, sticky notes you can place around to remind you, a gratitude app, or a shared note/file among family members or friends.
- Try to add at least five new entries every time you work on your list. For some people who have not practiced this discipline, you could start with three each time. Some individuals seek to add ten new entries each time.
- Tailor what you write to what fits you best. If you prefer long sentences, then write in sentence. However, if one, two, or three words work for you, then do that. You will want enough detail in your mind or on paper to remember what you were being grateful for when you wrote it. A bullet point list is fine as long as you can remember what you are referencing. The goal is to be specific as possible, with as much detail as possible.
What Should Be In Your Gratitude List
- Focus on God, people, and experiences more than objects, although objects are fine – like air conditioning, refrigerator, indoor plumbing, etc.
- You can focus on one category at a time or a particular category each day. Be creative. Do what works for you. You can see two examples below.
- Example of one set of categories: spiritual, significant people, significant experiences, big things, everyday things, things from work, things about relationships, unique experiences, and bright ideas that come to you.
- Example of another set of categories: Begin with God (His character, His work, His plan), Specific people (your immediate family, extended family, church family, neighbors, work relationships, community relationships, influencers such as favorite authors, speakers, etc.), Significant experiences and relationships (salvation, baptism, marriage, births, conferences, pastors, counselors, education), Yourself (as a person, as a created being), Spiritual growth (include answered prayer requests, special verses, important experiences), Vocational, Financial
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