The Daily Gratitude Journal

​For the past year, I have been journaling about various events, people, materials, actions, behaviours, etc. In other words, I have been writing about my personal daily life for about a year. However, the main focus has been on the aspects I genuinely enjoy and appreciate about life, despite how incremental or trivial those aspects might be perceived. The main reason behind the gratitude journal was a realisation of how much we as individuals focus on the negative occurrences or aspects of life, which influenced my outlook. Beforehand, there was a recognition of the negative perspective and how it influenced the daily mood. However, a lack of self-correction and action dominated more. As a result of the inaction, the pessimism further developed and grew exponentially, which even influenced my general results in academia, fitness, finances, etc. On the other hand, the pessimism was not excessive and led to great results, but not the desired ones.
 
The desired results were idealised and perceived as unachievable. However, I would frequently be able to acquire the results through massive amounts of work. As a consequence, I became a workaholic again and used most of my time working towards the goals, which led to one-sidedness in life. Additionally, an apathetic state began dominating the daily mood, which led to overindulgence of anything stimulating that could spark a positive emotion or any emotion at all. Disclaimer, I do not condone the immature view on constant positivity or optimism because that is another form of denial. Nevertheless, I realised that I needed to change my approach to life, which led to something as trivial as a gratitude journal. The gratitude journal began with incremental aspects of life, which often are ignored. For example, the same cup of coffee made in a cheap coffee filter machine that was shared with my two flatmates: Deepu and Andre. Unexpectedly, the mornings became incrementally more enjoyable with each day that passed. Also, the various other tasks became more enjoyable as I began to write aspects I appreciated about them.
 
To be honest, there has been a lack of consistency with the journal over the year. However, the benefits are visible because of the improved emotional state and positive outlook. The personal conception about gratitude journals before was primarily negative and something I ridiculed often. Currently, there is a clear difference between my emotional state when I have written in the journal and when I have not.
Give it try!