Does Gratitude Journaling Really Do Anything?

Gratitude Journaling In This Specific Way Will Increase Your Happiness Levels

Today I’m talking about gratitude journaling, what it is, why you want to do it and the most powerful way to gratitude journal. You've probably heard this before, gratitude is something that helps us feel abundant, it helps us really appreciate the good things that are happening in our lives. And you might even have friends that talk about how they, write something down, they're grateful for every day. I even know another coach who actually thinks of 108 things she is grateful for before she even gets out of bed in the morning. And this is wonderful.

I have a background in positive psychology, I have a positive psychology certification from the flourishing center and in positive psychology, gratitude journaling is one of the areas that has the most amount of research behind it.

Back probably about 10 years ago, I had a running buddy who I really respected, I loved everything she did, she was such a positive person. She was an incredible role model and force in my life. I loved being around her. She told me that she writes down something she's grateful for every single day at the end of the day in her calendar. And I thought, “wow that's really cool. I'm gonna try this in my morning pages every day.”

Well, I tried it, I wrote down something I was grateful for every day. But it never really felt great to me, it felt like I was performing, it didn't feel like I was really expressing gratitude, and I couldn't connect with it. So I let go of that practice. Well, fast forward to the flourishing center and my experience in the positive positive psychology certification program. What I learned there is that gratitude journaling is powerful, it can actually increase our baseline happiness levels exponentially.

The actual definition of gratitude according to Chris Peterson, and Martin Seligman, the founders of positive psychology, they define gratitude as “a sense of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift, whether the gift be a tangible benefit from a specific other or a moment of peaceful bliss evoked by natural beauty.”

There is one particular study that had people do a gratitude practice for 30 days. So there is a control group that is doing a very specific gratitude practice every day, for 30 days. And then there is another group, right, or this is the experiential group, this is the control group, all they're doing is nothing. They're just being shown against the group that is doing a gratitude practice. So the group that is asked to do a gratitude practice every single day, they are asked to do things, three things, they are asked to write down what they're grateful for, why they are grateful for it, and what they did to bring that into their life, every day for 30 days.

Now, they were also told that if one day they do not feel the feeling of gratitude, so can't conjure that feeling of gratitude in their body in their heart center, skip it, because having doing the gratitude practice, that day is actually going to have a negative effect. Now, at the beginning of the study, everyone's baseline happiness level was tested. So after about two weeks, this control or this experimental group, the group that was doing the gratitude practice, oddly enough, their happiness level dropped a little bit beyond the group that was doing nothing. Then at the 30-day mark, or after about 30 days out, they were back up to about the same.

Now a month later, this group's happiness level had risen. Six months later, this group's happiness level had risen even more! Up to a year later, this group that did the gratitude practice, their happiness level had actually even risen higher. What we know is that particular gratitude practice, if you did it for 30 days straight, and then maybe you even stopped doing it, it would have long-lasting effects on your happiness levels up to a year out. And we don't know if it would impact your happiness levels past that, because they stopped tracking it after a year.

Interestingly, you know how it dropped below the control group for a little while, they don't exactly know why that happened. However, it could be around the fact that starting a new habit is challenging, and can be a little bumpy in the beginning. So that might have been the reason that's the hypotheiss on why they dropped below the control group for a little bit.

Let's break this down. I highly recommend doing a gratitude practice. And I think this is something that helps us cultivate our own inner wisdom. Expressing gratitude does a couple different things.

When you write down what you are grateful for, and then why you are grateful for it, that alone helps you pause, appreciate what you have, and conjure the feeling of gratitude. So that the y piece of things, the why you're grateful for it, hopefully, by writing down why you're grateful for it, you will feel the feeling of gratitude in your body. You will experience the feeling of gratitude, it starts you from a place of abundance, gratitude is a huge abundance practice.

Now, the the most important piece is the last piece, and this is writing down what you did to bring that into your life. I often talk about this in context of a conversation I had with my mom about it, because my mom is a very Catholic, a very religious woman. And she said, Alicia, all of the good things in my life, I really believe that God brought to me and I said, Mom, that that's absolutely probably true. The Great Creator maybe brought those things to you. And you can be grateful to the great creator for those things. But we as individuals have a choice on whether or not we are going to interact with what comes into our path. So you know, maybe like my dad was this great human being who came into my mom's life, she chose to interact with him, she chose to have a relationship with him. She cultivated that relationship. You know, you might she loves the house she lives in right, she chose to buy that house and take care of that house. So those are the things you did to dance with the universe. What did you do to help bring that thing into your life? Did you go to school and work really hard to be able to put yourself in the position to apply for and accept a really great job in the field of your study, something like that.

And here's the really important piece, about writing down what you did to bring that thing that you're grateful for into your life. It shows you how you have agency and control over some of the good things that are going on in your life. I love this particular practice, especially when I'm feeling a lot of anxiety, you know, if you are a worrier, if you’re someone that wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about the to-do list and you're having a hard time getting back to sleep, or you're worrying about things that are really outside of your control. If you can pause and think in your head, start doing this practice, I promise you, it will actually help rewire the neural pathways in your brain, it will help get you out of a thought loop if you are in a thought loop.

I highly recommend trying this gratitude practice writing down what you're grateful for, why you are grateful for it, and what you did to bring that thing into your life. Do this for 30 days, and let me know what impact this had on you. Now you can go to the link in my description and download this workbook. The compass of your year workbook. It is a workbook that I produce every single year and you get the digital copy. I just send mine to Kinkos and have it printed. But I talk a little bit more about this particular practice. And then on the next page on page 30. I share something that was created by a woman named Deb let's see Deb Giffen and she graduated from the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program in 2015. And this particular this was part of her project for her and of studies project she came up with what's called the Daily Dozen and this is One of my all time favorite journaling practices, and I think you'll love it too.

I will just take these questions and I answer them in my journal. So it is writing down three good things that happened to you in the past 24 hours and how you contributed to it happening. Three challenges that you are facing and one thing that you can do to move each forward in a positive direction. Three grateful things in general, either past or present. And then three future things you want three future gratitude. So you'd write down like, you know, I want to have you know, write a book or publish a book or start the business. I'm grateful that I started my business. I am grateful that I wrote my book. And then you write down at the end of those future gratitudes you'd say you'd add and so it is all this or something even more delightful for the highest good of all. So go to that my description below this video.

Alisha Wielfaert is a life coach and an expert facilitator skilled in the art of gathering women for meaningful connection and deep dives into spirituality and creativity.  She is the founder of Yoke and Abundance, a platform committed to amplifying the emerging voices of women through her wise women podcast, press publishing arm, and individual and group coaching programs.  Her first book, the best-seller, “Little Failures: Learning to Build Resilience Through Everyday Setbacks, Challenges, and Obstacles,” was published in May of 2022.  Alisha is working on her second book, Little Rituals.  In her spare time and stolen moments, Alisha loves watercolor painting.  She is an avid traveler, writer, and speaker who enjoys working with anyone with a propensity to take action toward their dreams.