Things I’m grateful for everyday are a comfortable bed, hot water with excellent pressure, and an attached garage. I’ve said all this before.
I’ve also advocated for keeping a gratitude journal where every day you write four things you are grateful for and one you will be when the Universe delivers it.
But a study* has shown that keeping a daily gratitude journal has diminishing returns. As we try to come up with something new every day, we start to wonder if we truly do have all that much to be grateful for. The study showed that writing in that journal once a week was the sweet spot.
Get ready—it’s time for a new gratitude practice, one that is like gratitude on steroids.
It’s reminiscing.
When we remember things that stirred feelings of fun or love or satisfaction or joy, we are reminded that fun and love and satisfaction and joy are abundant. Reminiscing in this way diminishes feelings of regret and deprivation by giving us a prompt to appreciate life’s pleasurable experiences. The habit of acknowledging the pleasure in our lives increases our overall sense of gratitude and amplifies the positive aspects of our lives.
The once-a-day habit of searching for things to be grateful for can lead to dwelling on the gap between our lives and happiness. Reminiscing is action-oriented. We are once again evoking the emotions we experienced the first time around. And as we remember that we made these wonderful things happen, it gives us the desire and the agency to create new experiences that will evoke similar emotions.
We become super-manifestors of fun, love, satisfaction and joy!
Take a moment right now to remember a fun day. For me, it was laughing, eating and drinking on a boat in Turkey with two people I love and three new people who were both intelligent and hilarious. I re-experience the feelings of happiness and belonging just thinking about that day.
Or how about a time you felt truly loved by a friend, lover, or partner? Or a time you experienced great satisfaction with something you worked hard on?
You see? Easy, right? You can start writing about it by replying to this email and telling me what one of your peak experiences was.
*Sonja Lyubomirsky, Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside