Has someone told you lately that you don’t seem very grateful for what you have? Or maybe you just feel like you don’t appreciate the things you’ve been given or how your life is going.
If you look at other people who seem to be content with much less than you have, you may wonder what it is you’re missing. You may be wondering how to be grateful for what you have.
Being grateful isn’t a character trait that everyone naturally has. For some people it’s something they have to develop, and we have provided a guide for you below to show you some steps you can take for how to be more grateful for what you have.
Write Thank You Notes
There was a time where it was expected for people to send thank you notes to anyone who had given them a gift or done something significant for them. That time of genteel manners is mostly passed, but it’s still very good to remember to appreciate people for what they’ve done for you.
Being grateful and saying thank you can be as simple as sending a text. It’s even more impactful if you call them on the phone to tell them thank you. Even better than that is when you can tell them in person or give them a gift in return. While not every gift, generous action or helping hand may require a thank you note, it’s certainly not a bad idea to send out thank you notes for special occasions.
In fact, it’s still expected that people will send out thank you notes to wedding guests after the wedding as well as to birthday party guests after the party. Formal occasions and major events like these are worth celebrating and worth telling people “thank you” for attending.
Make a List of How You Been Blessed
A lot of times, people forget to be grateful because they simply don’t realize they have much to be grateful for. If you want to know how to always be grateful for what you have, it can help to start by making a list of all the things don’t you think you ought to be grateful for it.
You might list things like your health, your family, your job, your friends, your home, your car, and other things that mean a lot to you. Not everybody will have the same list of things that they are grateful for, but everybody can find something to be thankful for and show appreciation for it.
Once you start to count your blessings and count the things that you can be thankful and grateful for, you may see that it’s a much longer list than you initially thought. Many people start off making a list like this thinking there will just be three or four things, but they end up spending days adding more and more things to the list.
Just looking at all that and thinking over these things that you can be grateful for can do a lot for your spirit of gratefulness.
It can help you to realize that you have a lot of good things in your life and people have done a lot for you. What you want to do is keep that list posted somewhere that you can see it every day. That will help you have the right perspective and remember that you have much to be grateful for. It can help you to stay grateful daily rather than just to have that feeling of gratefulness come and then go.
What Is the “Be Grateful for What You Have” Bible Verse?
The Bible has a lot to say about grateful, but probably the most well known verses on being grateful are in the Bible book of 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 5, verses 16 and 18 say, “Rejoice evermore. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
These verses have given people a lot of comfort over the years and helped them remember that they ought to be more grateful. Helpful verses like these can motivate people to have a spirit of gratefulness and to show more appreciation for those who have done so much for them.
By learning how to give thanks in everything and learning to rejoice in any situation, people can find the good in seemingly bad situations. They can learn how to show appreciation to the people who are doing something for them who might normally be overlooked because of what they’re going through.
Promise to Practice Gratitude
If you make a vow to be more grateful, you will find it is easier to have a grateful spirit. By promising to show appreciation to others for what they’ve done and learn to appreciate what you have, your attitude about being grateful will gradually change.
Many people don’t develop positive habits until they promised to themselves or to someone else that they will start practicing those habits. At first, it can be a struggle, and it will be difficult to learn to be grateful if you have struggled with gratefulness before. But the more you force yourself to practice it, the easier it will become. After a while, it will be second nature and you will find yourself being grateful by habit rather than by force.
It can help to have an accountability partner when you are trying to develop positive habits. Choose someone who will check up on you and make sure that you are keeping to your promise. If you know that they will be checking in on you, you are more likely stick with the habit rather than abandoning it. By being accountable, you’ll be more motivated to be grateful with everything you experience.
What Gratefulness Does
Have you ever heard the notion that if you learn how to be grateful for what you have, and you’ll end up having more? This is something that many people have found to be true in their lives. They may notice that they lack gratefulness and may not show appreciation to people who do so much for them. But once they start to show a grateful spirit, and they learn to be grateful for the things that they already have, they find themselves blessed with bounty.
They also learn to appreciate things that other people might take for granted and they learn to be grateful for what others would expect to be given to them. People will notice the change in you as you practice gratefulness, and their relationship with you will change. The way they treat you will likely change, and they will see you in a new light, as a better, more positive person.
Once you learn to be grateful, you’ll also learn to be satisfied with less. You will be more appreciative of what people do for you, and at the same time people will be more likely to do things for you. That’s simply how it works, as people love to be appreciated for what they do. They are more likely to do things for people who show them appreciation.
Simply by being more grateful, you can have closer relationships with people and you will value the things you have more.
My name is Ellis Francis and I have been a personal fitness trainer, sports nutritionalist and health and fitness advisor for over 25 years. I am the lead health and fitness advisor at https://awellnessbody.com.
