Learning how to be grateful is a really useful skill to develop, and here, I show you how to do it. Learning how to be thankful isn’t something that “should be done because other’s expect us to”. It’s simply a way of making life that much brighter. If you try to force the process out of a sense of duty, you’ll get nowhere near as far as you would if you approach it with a sense of joy and wonder.

It is my opinion that there are 2 types of emotions. There are those that all animals experience - fear, anger, desire, etc, and those that only humans experience - valour, altruism and gratitude. It was Cicero who said “Gratitude is the not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others”.

I’ve been keeping this blog for over a year, and can testify to Cicero’s comment. Being grateful really does expand one’s mind to one’s fellow man. I am much more aware now, of how gratitude can help people, and devote a portion of my time and money to giving something back to those who are less fortunate than myself. I don’t do it because I feel I ought to - I do it because it makes me feel good! Feeling thankful has been a life changing experience for me.

So, how can you learn how to be grateful & get this wonderful feeling in your own life? It’s easy.

1. Choose what to focus on. If you spend time learning how to play the fiddle, you’ll get better at it. If you train to run a marathon, you’ll get better at it. If you teach yourself to do Sudoku puzzles, you’ll get better at them. It’s the same with gratitude. Every day, look around and open your eyes to the things around you that you can be grateful for. Since you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you have an internet connection. Since you have that internet connection, I’m going to assume you have a house, and a job to pay for that connection with. That’s 3 things right there that you could be grateful for. Since I’ve been practising this as long as I have, I can think of other, more subtle things that you could be grateful for. The fact you can read. The fact that you have eyes to see with. The fact that your brain is comprehending the words you’re reading. Some of those things might have occurred to you already, and that’s great! You’re already on the way. Fine tune your focus to see the good things in life.
2. Imagine you’re driving down a road, on a hot summer’s day, when the smell of rotting garbage assails your nostrils. You look out of the passenger window of your car, and see piles and piles of garbage. Huge mounds of rubbish, buzzing with flies. Rats crawling all over it. Rotting food, with seagulls picking at it. Maggots wriggling about. And the all pervading stench of filth. It’s making you want to vomit. Then, you turn and look out of the driver’s window. You see a lovely green verge, covered with wild flowers. Trees are blossoming. Birds are sitting in the trees, singing beautiful songs. There’s that smell of freshly mown grass on the air, and the sun is shining. Rabbits are scampering about in the grass, and butterflies are flitting about. Pretty flowers are turning their colourful faces towards the sun, and bees are buzzing about, going from flower to flower. You feel peaceful and relaxed. This is what life is like. There is sufficient evidence, every second, to prove that life is a pile of garbage or a bed of roses. Yes, there might be negative things happening in your life. But you don’t have to make your life all about them. It all depends on your attitude.
3. Constantly look for new things to be grateful for. Every day, I’m grateful for coffee and a hot shower. Which is fine. I feel grateful for those things every day, so I list them every day. However, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, so I’m constantly looking for more things to be grateful for, every day. This gives me more chances to feel good, and who doesn’t want that?
4. Get used to the feeling of gratitude. Take something, right now, that you actually feel grateful for, and feel grateful for it. Get used to that feeling of warmth and happiness. Feels great, doesn’t it? Exercise your “gratitude muscle” by feeling grateful as often as possible. Like any muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. What’s more, this kind of exercise actually feels good. You don’t get sweaty and tired. You get happy and satisfied. It becomes it’s own reward. I found that the more grateful I felt, the more grateful I wanted to feel.
5. Things could always be worse. If you stub your big toe, be grateful that you didn’t stub two toes. And if you did stub two toes, be grateful that you didn’t break them. And if you did break them, be thankful that your body will heal them. Yes, negative things do happen. Be aware of them, but don’t focus on them, and don’t ignore them either. Focusing on them can turn a stubbed toe into a broken leg. Ignoring them can turn a broken toe into a badly set toe. Neither of those things are good. Being aware of those things enables you to take steps to correct them, which can teach you a new skill set - something else to be grateful for.
6. Try to realise how much you already have. This is one of the main tenets of being grateful. The new coffee machine is going to be just another trinket in a life full of them if you aren’t grateful for it. The shiny new car will quickly become an annoyance when it breaks down. It’s easy to forget how many cups of coffee you’ve enjoyed, or how many successful journeys you’ve made in the car, when faced with something going wrong. Being grateful can act as a buffer, and help you realise that things aren’t really that bad. After all, who wants to feel bad? Also, try to realise that you’re way better off than a large percentage of the world’s population. Next time you have to wait a few extra seconds in the queue at Starbucks, remember those people who have to walk 4 miles every single day just to get a drink of water. And not even clean water. Water that could quite possibly harm them and kill their children. Suddenly, those few extra seconds waiting in line don’t seem so bad, do they?
7. Another important facet of gratitude is expressing it. Say thank you to people. Send thank you emails, or letters. I often send an email when I order stuff off ebay or Amazon, thanking the seller for getting the product to me. People love being thanked. It makes them feel good, and it makes you feel good to have brightened someone’s day. Basically, fake it til you make it. Saying “thank you” is one of the simplest ways to cultivate gratitude.
8. Watch this video.
9. Google “first world problem”. A first world problem is something like the batteries in the remote control for your television running out, so you actually have to get out of the chair and change the channel manually. It’s such an insignificant thing compared to the struggle for daily life that some people have, but it’s easy to get caught up in little details like that, instead of being grateful that you have a television in the first place.
10. One of my favourite author’s, Peter McWilliams, wrote a book called Wealth 101, which discusses “getting what you want, and enjoying what you’ve got”. It’s the book that inspired me to start this blog. You can find it on Amazon, for as little as $0.01. It’s well worth a read.

I hope you found this guide useful. If you want to be emailed when it is updated, please leave me a comment below, with your email address in the correct field. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, let me know below.

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