Canadian Life Coach Tips: Daily Gratitude Practice
As a Canadian life coach, I am often asked “How do I improve my life?”. A daily gratitude practice is the best way to improve your life. While there are many different factors that affect each person’s wellbeing, there is one overwhelmingly powerful strategy that has a positive impact for everyone.
Daily gratitude practice is the most impactful way to improve your mood, success and health.
If you want to improve your life, this article will teach you how to easily incorporate a daily gratitude practice. This article covers;
Why Gratitude Is Beneficial
How To Incorporate More Gratitude in Your Life
A Simple Daily Gratitude Practice
What To Do If You Struggle with Gratitude
Tips For Everyday Gratitude
Why Is a Daily Gratitude Practice So Beneficial?
In my life coaching practice, I teach my clients tools to improve their daily lives. Gratitude has a positive impact on every aspect of your life and is at the core of my philosophy as a life coach.
Gratitude is a booster shot for your relationships, strengthening interpersonal connections. When you feel grateful it creates a self-sustaining cycle of contentment and generosity.
If you tend to gripe and complain, it puts you in a negative mindset where you will seek out fault and see the downside. A gratitude practice is the antidote to negativity, frustration and aggression. Instead of grumbling, look for the glimmers and you will find more joy in your life.
Studies show that those who practice gratitude have better heart health and experience less stress. Gratitude calms the nervous system, slows your breathing and can reduce the risk of heart disease.
You have taken the first step in understanding the benefits of gratitude, now let’s explore some practical tips to bring a gratitude practice into your day.
How Do I Incorporate More Gratitude into My Life?
Sometimes finding gratitude can be challenging, and you are not alone if you overthink it. Some people find the notion of gratitude to be overly sentimental or perhaps even a sign of weakness. Others might believe that expressing gratitude puts them in debt. Sometimes an inability to express gratitude might be an indicator of depression.
When I was working with a life coaching client, they had difficulty understanding the concept of gratitude. Although they recognized the importance of being grateful for their health, it didn't feel genuine to them. However, when my client realized that it's okay to appreciate the little things, such as sunshine, a stranger's smile, or seeing a hummingbird, everything changed. They began to seek moments of gratitude in each day and found a more positive outlook on life.
No matter if you express appreciation with ease, or if feeling grateful is alien to you, everyone can benefit from a regular gratitude practice. Can you spare a minute each day to reduce the risk of heart disease, improve your relationships, and find more happiness? Of course you can! Read on to learn an easy way to add gratitude to your day.
A Simple Daily Gratitude Practice
The rose, thorn, bud exercise is a self-reflection practice that guides you to find positive moments. It only takes a minute each day to run through this gratitude exercise and the benefits are immediate.
Picture a rose bush with a blooming flower, a thorn on the stem, and a bud ready to emerge the next day. The rose represents a highlight, the thorn is a challenge you overcame, and the bud is something you are looking forward to.
The Rose.
Your daily gratitude practice begins with the rose. Think about your day, flicking through your memories like a movie, keeping your eye out for glimmers. A glimmer is a micro moment of joy in your day, these are the moments that lift you up. They can be little things like seeing a butterfly, finding a feather, or feeling the warmth of the sunshine. Or they might be more substantial events such as signing a new contract, catching up with a friend, or passing an exam. And of course, all orders of magnitude in between.
Sometimes it may be hard to choose from many highlights in your day. You aren’t diminishing moments of joy by choosing one over the other. When you find yourself in this situation, delight in the abundance of the day and allow one memory to represent them all.
Even for the most optimistic person, there will be days you struggle to find a rose. I am very much a lollipops and unicorns gal, and even as a life coach I sometimes struggle to find gratitude in my day! This might be because your day was particularly awful, or because it was so dull that nothing stands out. Keep digging and scratching around until you see a glimmer in the dirt. With practice, you will find it easier to spot the many little shiny moments in your day.
The rose in my day yesterday was watching the first chapter of Kevin Costner’s epic Western, Horizon. It was doubly delightful to be entertained by a great movie and to escape the heat wave that is smothering Southern British Columbia this week!
The Thorn
Again, reflecting on the day, think about the challenges that you faced and how you overcame them. Maybe you were feeling blue but were able to rally and show up for your clients, or you forgot your lunch at home and decided it was an opportunity to intermittent fast, perhaps you slept in and missed your morning workout but didn’t let it ruin your day. Just like your rose, the thorn is going to vary each day. The beauty of this part of the exercise is in how it asks your brain to identify how you were able to turn low points around, training you to see the good in what you might consider bad situations.
Yesterday while writing a chapter for my upcoming book, I found myself frustrated that the words were not flowing. I took a break and allowed myself a whole hour of doing whatever I wanted, then came back to writing with renewed creativity. I took a challenging situation and found a solution.
The Bud
Cast your mind forward to tomorrow and ask yourself “What am I looking forward to?”. As with the other elements of this practice, there will be times when the answer is clear, and times when it eludes you. Remember that just like the rose, your bud can be tiny. Here is a brilliant hack for you, if you struggle to find something to look forward to tomorrow, create something! Plan to have a bubble bath, grab a latte, or phone a friend.
You are in control of your life, your destiny, and your happiness, so take action and create a life you look forward to.
Today’s bud is looking forward to getting together with my book club tonight to discuss our latest read, Tilly and The Crazy Eights. I enjoy the social aspect of our monthly gatherings, and love that we get to read a variety of books.
You see, your rose, thorn and bud can come from any aspect of your day. Spending a few minutes each day contemplating your rose, thorn, and bud will have an enduring impact. This simple, and focused version of a daily gratitude practice helps to reprogram your brain to default to the positive. Life coaching is all about mastering your mindset and working with a life coach will help you accelerate your progress.
What If I Can’t Think of Anything to Be Grateful For?
If you find it hard to identify your rose, thorn, and bud, don’t worry. The strategy I suggest to my life coaching clients is narrowing down the scope to make it less overwhelming. Start by looking at your basic needs such as sleep, shelter, food and water. For example, your rose might be having fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. Your thorn is the grocery store not having the ingredients you wanted for dinner, but you adapted and tried cooking something new. Your bud is looking forward to getting into your comfy bed tonight.
Resist the temptation to repeat the same things each day. Doing so diminishes this into a list-writing exercise and removes the benefits. I encourage you to write your rose, thorn, and bud down each day. When you are stuck for ideas or feeling down, look back through your notes and see real examples of bright moments in your life, how resilient you are, and the many things you look forward to.
How To Bring Gratitude to Your Day
As a life coach I am always learning from my clients, and I love the variety with which they have each found ways to incorporate the rose, thorn, and bud gratitude practice into their lives:
One family takes turns sharing around the dinner table. Although sometimes it can seem a lot with five of them, it gives the whole family an opportunity to celebrate, and support each other.
Another client likes to journal after work each evening and enjoys the gentle transition his practice brings from work to rest. He also appreciates the ability to look back and reflect on his thoughts.
I run through the practice silently first thing in the morning before I get out of bed, and last thing at night before I go to sleep. Bookending my day with gratitude helps me start my day in a positive mindset, and to drift off with contentment.
What If I Miss My Daily Gratitude Practice?
It is completely normal to skip a day, especially when you are starting to create a new habit. Don’t beat yourself up, and don’t let missing a day or even a week be an excuse to quit on yourself. Remember that you are incorporating daily gratitude to make your life better. When you notice you missed your daily gratitude practice, simply do it at the very next opportunity. Stacking your daily gratitude practice with something else you already do is a great way to make the habit stick.
During one of my weekly sessions with my life coach I shared that I was feeling overwhelmed and down on myself. She asked me insightful questions that led me to realize I hadn’t done my daily gratitude practice for almost 3 weeks. I reimplemented it that day and felt better right away.
A daily gratitude practice doesn’t need to be lengthy or complicated. Taking a few moments to reflect on a highlight, a challenge, and what you are looking forward to is an easy, fun, and effective way to bring the benefits of gratitude to your life.
In my recent TV interview, I talk about how you can play around and have fun finding out what feels best for you to incorporate the rose, thorn and bud daily gratitude practice into your life. There is no right or wrong, way to do a daily gratitude practice, just do what feels good to you!
Emma Hull is Canada’s top confidence coach and founder of Life Untethered Coaching. She teaches you to have unshakeable confidence so you can achieve your audacious dreams.
Get ready to meet the version of yourself you’ve always wanted to be, sign up for her inspirational emails and book your free strategy session today.