Don't wait for the day to prove itself to you. Wake up and prove to yourself that you will be thankful and grateful — no matter what the day brings.
Gratitude in itself is overused because it's easy to say. It's easy to tell someone there's power in gratitude as easy as it is to say there's power in potatoes. You can "let the universe know you're ready" or you can let the bus driver know what you're up to. You can send all the love and light you want but I'll still feel clammy and itchy either way.
Words are words. Like these words! Look at me go! I'm doing words!
The real value to gratitude is when you turn those words into action.
Whether it's through journaling or verbal meditations or prayer or whatever vehicle brings you to building a ritual around these words.
If you don't know where to start, there's plenty of resources on the internet where others are sharing their packaged brand of gratitude, but my best recommendation would be to start exactly where you are, as you are, and let it be imperfect.
Use your own words, build your own ritual, walk the path that makes sense for you.
You can start with someone else's ideas/words if that helps lower entry point friction but let it inspire you to reflect on the things you're specifically grateful for and look for the patterns. What you can continuously say, "Damn, I'm so thankful this exists. Holy shit, I can't believe I get to have that in my life."
Take this action in the morning. Ignore your phone, don't catch up on the news, don't immediately start stalking people on Facebook. Just be for a hot minute.
For myself, I like to write. My writing practice is daily, it's morning and night, and it's often around ideas, experiences, thoughts and emotions.
When it comes to gratitude I've been writing it out, almost like a prayer, but more-so like a declaration. A personal declaration of this is who I am and this is why I am. It's not to any specific deity or spiritual framework but I know that everything outside of me and inside of me is bigger and more complex than I can ever understand so whatever that great creator energy is, that's what I'm thanking.
I'll share one of my gratitude entries to give you a framework of how I approach it and the process for me is to 1) write it, 2) say it out loud, then 3) go on with my day. Remix it, make it yours, bastardize it until it feels personal.
Here's mine:
Fucking THANK YOU.
Thank you for another morning—
of waking up to my cat staring at me like a murderer...
of only having to wake up to pee 3 times and not 5.
Another morning of the same song playing at 7:15am...
"Dream World" by The Growlers...
Choosing a Dream WorldWhere a heart plus a heart can equal loveGo make your own worldIf there's not enough to choose from
Fucking THANK YOU — for my story.
The good of it and the bad.
The pretty shit.
The ugly shit.
Thank you for the love in my life.
For the love I have and the love I lost
and everything it has to teach me.
And thank you that no circumstance
can ever take away that love
because love isn't dependant
on reciprocation.
Love just is.
Thank you for the people in my life.
The ones who get me and the ones who don't.
They show me I'm not alone but there's more work to do.
And I thank you for that work.
That I wake up with a vision.
And walk towards that vision.
Every fucking day.
And thank you most for my son.
That I get the joy of seeing life
through the eyes of a child again.
That in a world full of suffering
children still laugh, and explore,
and love, and strive, and dream.
Thank you for all I have
and all I don't.
For all I am and all I will be.
For another morning to say
"Thank you for this one life of mine."