31 Day Gratitude Challenge

We often express how we are grateful for different things but I don’t believe it’s a daily task. Gratitude should be expressed daily. Instead we wait until something disrupts our daily routine to open our eyes to the little things. Do you express gratitude towards those around you? Do you look at the sun and feel gratitude for being able to see it? When you listen to music are you grateful you can hear it? There are so many little things we fail to be grateful for and even I am guilty of this.

It’s no secret that I have struggled lately with being overwhelmed and feeling good enough. I struggle just like each one of you. So many times we scroll through social media and see everyone’s “highlights” but hardly ever do we see the hard times or their struggles. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those people when I started this blog. I wanted to show you all that while I have a lot of ups in my life, it hasn’t always been that way.

Many of my friends and family struggle with constant negativity. I was that person as well at one time. So how do we change from constant negativity to finding the positive in situations? In my experience, showing gratitude is a huge step in the right direction. Once you start looking for things to be grateful for, your mind flips a switch in a way. A simple 5-minute gratitude journal helped me a lot when I started my journey.

Now, you may be wondering how gratitude can change you from being a person who always sees the negative to someone who can see the positive in any situation. There have been numerous studies to show this relationship. One of those studies, by Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough, examined the effect of a grateful outlook psychological and physical well-being.

In their study, they stated; “If a daily gratitude focus can augment positive affect, as Studies 2 and 3 suggest, then perhaps such intervention may be effective in alleviating milder forms of depressed affect.” If you are interested, check out their study, Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life.

I don’t know about you, but for me that is enough to make sure I count my blessings every day and show some gratitude! In order to make sure I get back in that habit, I have created a 31 Day Gratitude Challenge. I will be posting on my social media every day in March in conjunction with the gratitude challenge. I would love for you to join in this challenge with me. The picture below gives you a daily prompt to show gratitude towards.

If you would like to receive the gratitude challenge information in your inbox then be sure to subscribe to my email list below. Also, make sure to tag your daily gratitude posts with #HSGratitude so I can check them out. I just might repost as well!