Elizabeth Rider
I want to let you in on a little secret: until this year, I didn’t really get why people needed a gratitude ritual.
I mean, I am a really grateful person by nature. I love people like crazy and don’t take the positive experiences in my life for granted. I’m already super grateful so why do I need a ritual? Why on earth would I need to add another thing to my already too long to-do list? Taking time to write out what I’m grateful for felt kind of pointless.
But I was wrong. Dead wrong.
At the beginning of this year I had a phase where I’d get a bad feeling that something was lacking. I was stressed to the max. It had nothing to do with material goods—I knew I had enough stuff (actually, too much that’s why I recently sold 90% of what I owned, including my house, to travel for a year). I didn’t have enough, and I had too many demands. My to-do list was endless, which caused me to feel “lacking” instead of “abundant” no matter how many things I checked off my list.
Along with creating a to-don’t list (I’ll write more about that later), I carved out a little gratitude ritual to help me. It was the exact shift I needed, and it was immediate relief!
I’m a rituals girl. They are my lifeline. And of all my rituals, the gratitude practice may be my favorite. You may have a morning ritual or an exercise practice--but do you have a gratitude practice?
A gratitude ritual immediately shifts you from what you don’t have to what you do have. And when you feel stressed, a shift is exactly what you need.
Gratitude has proven physiological and psychological benefits, including:
- Higher levels of happiness
- Better sleep
- Increased mindfulness
- Less stress
- A healthier body
With that, here’s my own super simple gratitude practice that can change your life.
Daily 2-Minute Gratitude Practice
I like to do this in the evening right before bed, but you can find a time that works best for you. The most important thing is consistency.
1. Get a small notebook that will be your dedicated gratitude notebook. The notebook is key because it’s important to actually put pen to paper in rituals instead of typing. The mind-body connect of handwriting your gratitude amplifies the benefits, kind of like making a home-cooked meal is always better for you than a store-bought one.
2. Keep it at your nightstand, or another place that you return to every day at the same time. Maybe the coffee pot so you can jot what you’re grateful for as your coffee brews. You may find that you’re often grateful for coffee.
3. Every night (or morning), write the date at the top of the page.
4. Set intentions. Tell yourself you’ll write for a set amount of time. It can be fifteen minutes. It can be two minutes. I find that in the beginning it might take longer, but as your ritual becomes habit even just two minutes works.
5. In that set time, write what you’re grateful for. Anything that comes to mind is fair game. Anything from “big stuff” like health, spouse, family members, to “small stuff” like almond milk lattes, the awesome new playlist for your workouts, that you could afford your dentist appointment this month.
- The most important thing here is to be as specific as you can.
- Instead of “grateful for my sister,” write “I’m grateful that my sister called me on my way to work and compassionately listened while I told her about my disastrous date last night.”
- Take it up a notch by focusing on feelings rather than events. Like, “The cathartic feeling of bantering with my sister about dating in the modern world.” Write as many as you can in the allotted time.
The journal will become a record of your gratitude. With each entry, you are putting a coin into your gratitude bank, and over time you’ll have a nice savings.
The practice is centering and calming for me and reminds me of what is most important in life.
Grab a notebook today and put a reminder on your phone. Rituals take dedication and focus to build in the beginning, but if you stick with it for at least two weeks, it will start become a second nature. And when that happens, you’ll be on your way to a new attitude and less stressed day.
Ready to get started? I’d love to be a part of your journey. Use the hashtag #2minutegratitude so we can grow our gratitude practice in community.
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Rider is a leading nutrition & whole living expert teaching women around the world how to become the healthiest, most successful people they know. In a world flooded with diet information, Elizabeth’s healthy recipes and straight-forward nutrition advice draw millions of inspired readers to her popular blog. Best known for her fun and accessible approach to food & healthy living, she’s built an online wellness empire from scratch on her iPhone and laptop. The Psychology Of Eating named her website as a Top Health Coach Blog, and List Nutrition called her site a Top 20 Nutrition Blog. Thousands have had success using her online programs, which include Clean Up Your Diet™, Purpose To Profit™ and The Wellness Business Bootcamp™.
As host of Elizabeth Eats on Food Matters TV, Elizabeth is delightfully changing the way the world views healthy home cooking. She speaks on stages around the world and mentors scores of ambitious people each year to seek and live life on their own terms. As a Certified Holistic Health Coach (Integrative Nutrition) and accomplished online entrepreneur, cultivating a lifestyle of freedom and health is her religion. Elizabeth is a graduate of Cornell University’s Plant-Based Nutrition program, a TEDx speaker, and regular contributor to The Huffington Post. Her recipes have been featured on Shape.com, MSN, MindBodyGreen, Buzzfeed, Greatist and POPSUGAR among others.