365 Day Gratitude Challenge

365 Days of Gratitude

WHAT?!
Back when I was doing Mary Kay, the woman who became my sales director told me that if a goal didn’t make you want to throw up a little, it wasn’t a good goal.
My friend Andrea Schroeder, who leads workshops and has an amazing website where she helps people discover their creative passions, led a group one year in which I was able to participate. For the coming year, she asked us to list 100 goals. They could range from the sublime to the mundane. It was a powerful exercise, so powerful I’ve done it every year since. And as I was working on the 100-goal list for the year 2014, a little voice kept whispering to me, “365 days of gratitude. 365 days of gratitude.”
I haven’t gotten very many pageviews lately here on the blog. And even fewer comments. Like none. In over two years. It makes for a lonely existence on a blog. But let’s face it, I’m a sporadic blogger at best. A drip here, a drab there. And while we’re facing stuff, most days, I try to list five gratitudes and a lot of the time three of the five are named Melanie, Marc, and Rachael. More often than not, a fourth one is named John. (Those are my kids and husband in case you’re just joining me for the first time.) My ego says nobody’s going to read the same five gratitudes day after day for a whole year. So the idea to host a 365-day gratitude challenge on my blog was scoffworthy at first. But I’ve been attempting to engage in a regular gratitude practice for years now. And nothing sticks.
I need accountability. So maybe a challenge, that people sign up for and check in with me for, is just what I need. In addition to checking in with me, I’ll be checking in with them. We’ll create community. A gratitude community. I’ll be honest, the thought of having to do this and stick with it is making me want to throw up a little. Things are hard right now.
But if beginning a gratitude practice (for which I am indebted to my friend Tricia Moore) taught me anything, it really hammered home for me that what a person focuses on expands. As I began to really get in touch with things I was grateful for, I noticed myself feeling more grateful. Noticing more things for which to be grateful.
Grateful is a nice place to stay. I want to move in and live there permanently. So I am reaching out to anyone who reads my blog to engage in this with me. Help me put down roots in gratitude. Come put down roots with me.
I hope to come up with a formal way for people to sign up for this year-long foray into gratitude. I’ll be working on that between now and the end of the month, but for now, if you’re willing to undertake this with me…just list five things you’re grateful for, every day, for a whole year, raise your hand by putting a comment on this post. That will let me know I’m not alone and that the universe is pointing me in the right direction :).

With deepest thanks~
Elizabeth