What is the Gratitude Project Challenge? It’s a 30 day challenge and commitment designed to focus your thoughts on becoming more grateful for the things in our lives that we tend to take for granted. By focusing our energies towards daily positive thoughts, the project is supposed to help us realize that everyday — even on the days that we can’t see it, and even on the days that the darkest clouds seem to roll in and linger — there is always something to be grateful for.
The process of being consciously grateful for what we have is one of the key elements to our being able to achieve contentment and inner peace. Gratefulness is the necessary ingredient we so desperately need in order to stop the maddening comparison wars that rage within ourselves that lead to doubt and the scarcity mentality that says we don’t have enough or we are not enough.
Gratitude projects are nothing new. In recent years, various gratitude projects have popped up all over the internet that have us writing in journals, joining 30 Thankfulness Facebook groups, using pieces of paper and putting them in a jar, or some other method to notate a specific thing that we are grateful for that day. These “gratitude” and “thankfulness” challenges are simple reminders to show us just how blessed we are.
The more grateful we become with what we have and the more we recognize the good experiences in our lives, the more content and happy we become.
But is it that simple? Can one really change their outlook and increase contentment and happiness purely by consciously focusing on finding and recognizing something to be grateful for each day? I would like to think yes.
Experts agree that it takes a person doing something consistently for 21 days to form a new habit. So, it goes to reason that if one were to adopt a new mindset, it will take consistent daily practice. I figured if 21 days is the bench mark to form new habits, why not try to be grateful for an entire month? I already knew that I would be thankful for my family, friends, my home, and perhaps my daily cup of hot coffee, but coming up with something every day for 30 days to be grateful for, now this is a different story.
I discussed the idea of doing a gratitude activity with a group of women who are a part of a woman’s study I attend, and they jumped at the chance to do this project as a group. What started as a personal project is now growing into something a bit bigger. “The Gratitude Project”, as we called it, would challenge us and keep us accountable for one month to find at least one thing that we could say we were grateful for every day. We would then take our daily notes and place them into a glass container and watch our little pile of gratitude grow day by day. At the end of the 30 days, our group is planning to meet up to read our little slips of gratitude, share our experiences of looking for something good to be grateful for everyday, and gauge how a little bit of daily gratitude could change us.
Since November is typically associated with thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude, we decided that would be the most logical month to embark upon this little personal gratitude experiment and hoped more people would join in the fun.
If you are up for the challenge, we invite you to join us.
To be a part of our Gratitude Project Challenge, (you can do this as a solo personal journey, or invite a few of your friends to join in the fun):
- Simply commit to writing down one thing that you are grateful for each day for the next 30 days.
- Gather your supplies: 30 small pieces of paper (small note book pages, use post-it notes, etc.) and a glass container to visually watch the pile grow.
- Each day complete a slip of paper with your daily gratitude and simply fold the piece of paper and place into your container.
- At the end of 30 days you will have a visual reminder that everyday there is something to be thankful for.
- When the challenge is complete take the time to read your thoughts of gratitude and look for the patterns of happiness in your life.
- Re-visit this article and comment some of the things that you found to be your most grateful things in life.
- Challenge someone else to take the Gratitude Project Challenge.
The more we focus on what we are thankful for and the positive things we actually have, the less we will focus on what we don’t have and learn to stop seeing the negatives in life. Although my group is doing this during the month of November, this challenge can be done any month during the year.
Our goal and hope is to inspire other people see that being grateful for what we have and not focusing on what we don’t have can have a positive impact in our lives and in the lives around us.
Check back in at the end of November for an update on how our little Gratitude Project turned out.
Please leave a comment, or share a story about how focusing on gratitude has changed your life. As always, be sure to “Like”, “Tweet”, “Pin”, or “Share” this articles with your friends and family.
You might also like to read 5 Ideas To Jump Start Your Season of Thankfulness
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