How I Hated Practicing Gratitude
and how I fixed it
Promise: I won’t say anything about how practicing gratitude is good for you. You’ve heard it all before, you’ve read it here on Medium, you’ve seen reposts on Facebook: keeping a gratitude journal is a must and the more you give thanks, the more you attract things to be thankful for.
It wasn’t the case for me in the beginning.
Gratitude was and wasn’t part of my routine
“Count your blessings in the evening. It is the best way to finish your day”.
It was one of the things I struggled with the most. While every podcast, book, article, and inspirational Instagram image talked about gratitude, even the word itself was making me crazy at that point.
I was good at working out regularly, having a decent freelance routine, waking up early, and keeping my workspace clean. I was very good at planning and breaking down those big goals into small attainable ones — basically most of the things a lot of self-help books teach you, I practiced and I preached (only when asked).
However, sitting down in the evening and writing my blessings of the day felt like the biggest burden ever. It was ridiculously hard: I was happy to be distracted by absolutely anything. It was chaos in my head.
Everybody was like: “Even if nothing extraordinary happened during the day, you can still be grateful for the roof over your head, for the food in your fridge, for the smell of fresh coffee in the morning, etc.”.
I wanted to scream — I tried, it didn’t work for me. I could not get into that “gratitude flow” and just keep listing things — I wanted to go to bed.
My gratitude was forced and fake
Writing: “I am grateful for the perfect tomatoes I found at the market” or “I’m grateful for the fact that I live in a place where I can drink tap water” felt so … fake. I didn’t feel it in any way. I just wanted to get it over with, close the journal, and do literally anything else.
I felt helpless when writing “I am grateful for my health” didn’t do anything for my heart, soul, or my progress. If I am not grateful for being healthy, what’s left? It felt forced and mechanical, and it’s not what developing gratitude is about.
The more I tried, the more I got irritated with myself for not being grateful for things that most of the world’s population can’t access. I highly doubt that this array of feelings helped build up my general gratitude momentum.
I didn’t want to stop the “thank you” journal though. I thought it would grow on me. After all, working out did and nobody expected that, not me at least.
Yet, every night I was like: “Ughhhh I still HAVE to do my gratitude journal”, and I sometimes I would decide to catch up the day after. Once I tried to go back three days and write my blessings for those days.
Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.
It felt like a burden and I was sure I was sending a wrong message to whoever was reading my gratitude list and myself. Forced “thank you”? Better no “thank you” at all.
I gave up on the whole thing, yet that ‘gratitude’ thing was still everywhere around me — I knew it worked and it helped develop the right mindset, I just didn’t know how to apply it to my routine. A random situation took care of it.
A leaky wall fixed my attitude towards gratitude — and it’s not because it’s no longer leaking that I’m grateful
One day I was working from home and one of the five gratitude journals I started over the last year was staring me from one of the drawers.
I was writing an article for work and waiting for somebody to come and take a look at my wall — it had been leaking for months and months. Parisian landlords are not the fastest when it comes to fixing something. It also usually involves a lot of third parties, I won’t bore you with the details.
Finally, the repairman came over, diagnosed my wall, and said he would be back with more instruments and a drone (technology, man!), to take a look at the outside wall. I was so happy that somebody took my issue seriously.
The wall problem was mostly about aesthetics — the wall was getting yellow in one spot, and I kind of knew what it was — there was no danger for me or any of my neighbours.
“Don’t worry, we’ll fix it — I think I know what the problem is”, he said, and amid unanswered emails and messages with the pictures of my problematic formerly white wall, it was a relief.
I was SO happy and grateful at that moment because I felt like the proverbial snowball finally started rolling and there was a chance for my wall. We said our goodbyes, fixed the next appointment and I sat down at the same place to continue working and looked at my journal.
It hit me then, it was my own “before and after” moment.
“Am I going to feel the same about this situation in 10 hours, when my day is over?”
Most likely not. First of all, the buzz will wear off, it always does. Something may come in between me and the gratitude buzz, a client might be unhappy with my work, I might find a perfect tomato at the market and get excited about it, and in 3 hours and the wall will be way behind me…
I have to write it down in the journal NOW and enhance this feeling right away.
Turns out, I disliked doing my gratitude practice in the evening because I made it a chore I had to tick off on my daily “to do” list, instead of always practicing it and going with the flow.
In the evening, I won’t feel grateful for my coffee machine and the perfect coffee in the morning when my day is unfolding in front of me.
I will still be grateful for my morning piano class but the feeling of finally having perfected that difficult part of «Hey Jude» will have slightly faded away.
If I get an offer from a new client, I will do a little victory dance around my room but in less than an hour, I’ll be looking for the next best thing. By the evening, I might even forget this was my main event of the day.
I realized I had to write down my blessings, achievements and all the positive events RIGHT when I felt them.
To augment and build up the feeling, to feel the real gratitude and NOT to go through my messages with my Mom trying to remember what was the good thing that happened to me today. To show whoever out there was reading, even if it was just my brain, that YES, I recognize it, I am grateful and happy for this very blessing.
Now I am always working on my gratitude list. Writing ‘I am thankful for all the wisteria in the park during morning run’ is a real thing right after the run. In the evening it’s either forced for me, or I won’t even recall it.
I turn off the computer and the phone before bed, at least 30 minutes before sleep. I grab something to read, just as recommended, and now if I’m ever struggling with which book to pick, I always have something to read and it is always charged with the right emotions.
At this very moment, I am very grateful for finishing this article and I am going to write it down in my journal right away.
I am no longer THAT happy about the wall because turns out, the whole process will start in a month only and I’m in for at least half a year but … that morning it played a way bigger role in my life by suddenly changing my gratitude attitude.
