20 Gratitude Exercises That Will Change Your Life

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast

Has life asked you to look for the good in every experience—to bless it all, especially the moments that challenge you most? I’ve found that when I focus on being grateful, everything shifts. Everything feels lighter, clearer, better… even easier.

Gratefulness asks us to raise our bar. It asks us to be bigger than a moment of upset, anger, or jealousy. It’s gratitude in motion—a living, mindfulness sort of practice that invites us to see things differently.

Not surprisingly, research confirms what many of us sense intuitively: being grateful increases happiness, fulfillment, and our overall sense of well-being.

Who doesn’t want more of that?

To help you cultivate exactly that, here are 20 simple ways to bring gratefulness into your everyday life—not just during the holiday season, but far beyond it.

1. Begin your day with gratitude for 3 things.
2. Give thanks before every meal.
3. Shift from thoughts of lack to thoughts of abundance.
4. Transform the ordinary into extraordinary with thankfulness.
5. Take nothing for granted.
6. Remember the farmer when you eat your meals.
7. See the sacred in the simple and familiar.
8. Keep a gratitude journal.
9. Bless the people who have hurt you.
10. Thank someone who doesn’t expect it.
11. Extend “thank you” generously.
12. Notice one small beauty you’d normally overlook.
13. Send a gratitude letter to someone who matters.
14. Pause to appreciate it all.
15. Express silent thanks for strangers who make your day easier.
16. Appreciate challenges that asked you to grow.
17. Reframe one complaint as a hidden gift.
18. Look for the good in everything and everyone.
19. Find the one reason that can shift you from complaint to gratitude.
20. Close your day with gratitude for 3 things.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.