In my circle of friends, I'm known for my joy. I'm the one who always has an uplifting word and a friendly smile. 

But I have a confession to make. 

I work very hard to be happy. It's not my natural state of being. But I've found it makes life more enjoyable and hardships easier to manage if you coming from a place of joy. To do that, I need to actively and mindfully seek out joy. I also need to celebrate those joyful moments when they happen.

Now, I’m going to add a disclaimer right here, right now: if you have clinical depression, this blog piece does not apply to you. Your brain is not allowing you to choose very much, and certainly not happiness. If you have (or suspect you have) clinical depression, please seek professional help. You deserve to be in a place where you can choose happiness too.

However, if any of the situations below apply to you, then this blog might help you harness the power of your own joy:

• You feel bogged down by life;
• You’re stuck in a rut;
• You find yourself unreasonably annoyed over small things;
• You keep beating yourself up over your perceived imperfections;
• You feel like you are not enough; and/or
• You wonder why in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks happiness continues to elude you.

Seeking Joy? Express Gratitude

Joy and gratitude are very much interconnected. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown notes:

Without exception, every person I interviewed who described living a joyful life or who described themselves as joyful, actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joyfulness to their gratitude practice.

In other words, to live a joyful life, we need to live a grateful life.

The thing is, we walk around saying things like “I feel grateful for …” But gratefulness should be an action, not a feeling. Camille Styles sums it up nicely:

… for gratitude to really have its impact, it has to go beyond being something we feel, and become something we do in actionable ways on a regular basis.

Hmmm … Now, what can we do on a regular basis to express gratitude? Given that this blog is at sohospark.com, I think you can reasonably infer an answer.

The Gratitude Journal

Friends: like any other writing journal, a gratitude journal can be anything you want it to be. If a daily bullet list of 3 or 5 things floats your boat, that’s doable. If you want each entry to be a letter to someone/something to show gratefulness, that’s cool too. If you want to use art to express your gratitude in a blank notebook, go for it.

That said, here are a few tips that will help you get the most benefit from your gratitude journal.

How to Find Gratitude

Gratitude doesn’t have to be about things that are totally amazeballs. Sure, I would be grateful if I won the lottery or if Gerard Butler showed up on my doorstep. Duh. But I would also be grateful if I found a $5 bill I had forgotten about in a jacket pocket. Whee! A latte! Likewise, I’m grateful for the “big” things in life (like my health) but that doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful for silly things too (a good hair day = all kinds of yaass).

Now, we all have awful, terrible, no-good days when it feels like there are absolutely 0--ZERO!--things to be grateful for. That’s okay. No one can be joyful or grateful 24/7. Give yourself permission to have a bad day. Then dust yourself off, sprinkle on some sparkles (or caffeine, whatever works), and power on.

Choose a Blank Notebook That Speaks to You

As I explain in another blog: if you love your writing journal, there's a better chance you'll pull it out to work in it. Choose a blank notebook that sparks joy.  There is no one right answer for everyone. Different people look for different features. Do you prefer casebound or spiral bound? Hardcover or soft? Dots or lines or blank? What is your preference for paper color and weight? Will a cover with a beautiful graphic or motivational quote spur you to use it more often? If so, browse the SohoSpark website and see which cover designs spark joy.

Leave Negative Baggage at the Door

If venting in a writing journal is helpful for you, by all means, do it--just not in your gratitude journal. Keep this one notebook full of the warm fuzzies.

Dig Deep and Elaborate

The more deeply you examine why you’re grateful, the more powerful your gratitude becomes. Even if you're trying to keep things brief with a list, try to expand a little bit on the why. Let me give you these examples:

1. I’m grateful for my dogs.
2. I’m grateful for my dogs because they make me laugh and they get me outside every day, to enjoy fresh air and sunshine.
3. I’m grateful for the furballs of wonder that greeted me with wagging tails when I came home. I didn’t have a good day at work, but Archie’s funny “Welcome home!” howl always makes me laugh. And Gabe was feeling frisky enough to steal my shoe so that I would chase him around the yard. That’s pretty impressive for an old geezer like him! I’m so grateful he still finds joy and loves to play. Later, we went for a walk. I’m glad that they got me outside for awhile, to feel the warmth of the sun on my neck and see the sunset colors splashing across the sky.

Now, imagine rereading these a year or two down the road. Which of these would bring back the most powerful memories? Which evokes the strongest emotions? Which paints a clearer picture of the joy my dogs bring me? #3, amirite? But even #2 is better than poor old #1.

Use Prompts

By all means, if you need some ideas on what to write about--or if you seem to list the same 5 things every day--seek out writing prompts. An internet search for “gratitude journal prompts” brings up over 6.5 million results. There are lots of good ideas out there, like:

• Which of your body parts rock your existence?
• Which books or songs make your world spin on its axis?
• Which memories are you grateful to have?
• What are you thankful that you don’t have?
• What do you love about your job?

Make it a Habit

Schedule a regular time to work in your writing journal so that gratitude becomes a habit. Some people suggest doing so right after you wake up. That way, you set an intention for gratitude for the day ahead. Others suggest doing so at the end of the day so that you have plenty of grateful moments to choose from. But, hey, you could just do you, and pull out your gratitude journal while you’re riding public transit or on your lunch break.

That said, it’s not necessary to do this every day. If it becomes a chore, the joy seeps out of it. And, if you write about things that are deeply meaningful or surprising moments of gratitude, your gratefulness becomes more powerful than when you list the same things over and over by rote.

What do you say? Are you ready to bring more joy and gratitude to your life?

If you already keep a gratitude journal, please let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear from you--and especially about benefits you’ve experienced from your own gratitude journal.

Photo by gabrielle cole on Unsplash