The Most Powerful Gratitude Practice You’re Not Doing

I don’t think there’s anything that gives me more pleasure than the Za-cha-cha doing the final juhz of the table.

Hey there, it’s Marie Forleo, and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be, to create a business and life you love. You know what? Here in the US, we are just about to celebrate one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. I love it for two reasons, one, because I get to cook for my friends, and two, because I get to eat a lot of mashed potatoes. Those are two things I can do all day long. Now, this is also a time of the year when we all start to hear a lot about gratitude. I love gratitude because I think it is the number one super tool to transform your life.

But here’s the thing, gratitude can feel a little cliché. You might think like, “Oh gratitude, I’m so over it, been there, done that. It’s so Oprah in the nineties.” Here is the deal though. If you’ve got gratitude fatigue, I can pretty much bet you’re doing it wrong. I know, right? Who knew you could do gratitude wrong? I didn’t know that until I read this here book by Robert Emmons called Gratitude Works. Now Robert is the leading researcher on gratitude. Now here’s the thing, I want to teach you one trick that I learned from Robert that’ll help take your gratitude practice from something that’s kind of nice, into a total miracle smoothie for your emotional wellbeing.

Costly Vitamix not required.

Now before I tell you this one strategy, I got to be upfront. This is about gratitude journaling. Before you go, “Journaling, that’s just too much work. I don’t want to do it,” stop. Journaling is awesome. Two reasons, number one, when you journal, you start to uncover personal insights about yourself, which can really help you un wire any negative patterns that you have, and we all have them. Number two, when you journal on the regular, you really develop discipline. Discipline is awesome for following through and getting results. Now these two benefits never come when you just think about gratitude. So don’t be so quick to dismiss the journal practice. Okay, so here is the big magic gratitude trick. If you want the most ROI for your gratitude practice, the dividends are in the details. It turns out that most of us are pretty lazy when it comes to our gratitude practice kind of like this. Dear gratitude journal, I’m grateful for Josh. I’m grateful for my parents. I’m grateful for my team. I’m grateful for Kuma.

I’m grateful for our audience. I’m grateful in general. What’s wrong with that? It is way too general. So research shows that if we want the most bang for our gratitude buck, we have got to get specific, that means way more depth and less breadth. Check this out. The University of Southern California did a 10 week study on gratitude journaling with three groups. The first group were generalist, writing down five general things a day they were grateful for. The second group got specific. They picked one thing a day, and wrote five sentences about it. The third group wrote about ways which they were better off than other people, excuse us. Here’s the results. It turns out that the group that wrote five sentences about one thing were more elated, excited, and alert than the other groups and less tired, sad and lethargic. Bottom line, details equal dividends.

I got to tell you, this really, really works. So I tried it. I am so grateful for Josh, but instead of just saying “I’m grateful for Josh,” I wrote down five really specific things that I’m grateful for, and I want to read them to you right now. So I’m grateful that over the 11 years that we’ve been together, he’s brought me a hot beverage in the morning at least 1500 times. He makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world because he’s just so funny. He always says he’s sorry first, even if I’m being overly sensitive, and not just to placate me, but because he genuinely is sorry. He consistently helps me to slow down to enjoy life. Most importantly, he makes the most delicious blueberry, banana, walnut, peanut butter pancakes for me and all-

Hi there.

… my friends.

Did some pancakes for you.

Joshie. I love you.

I love you too.

See? This stuff works.

See? Pancakes.

Okay. So if you want to help spread the word about the right way to do gratitude, then you got to share this here tweetable.

The pancakes?

No, the tweetable. When it comes to gratitude, the dividends are in the details. So now, I would love to hear from you, and I want you to get grateful in the comments. So choose one person or thing that you’re grateful for, and write five specific detailed reasons why. As always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com, so get your butt over there and leave a comment now. Did you like this video? Are you grateful for it? If so, subscribe to our channel, and of course share it with your friends. If you want even more incredible resources to create a business and life that you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only get to talk about in email, come on over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates.

Stay on your game, and keep going for your dreams because the world really does need that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV. B-School is coming up. Want in? For more info and free training, go to joinbschool.com. [inaudible 00:06:05]? Who’s easier on the eyes? [inaudible 00:06:07], all the abuse and MarieTV. It’s kind of crazy. I want to have a pancake.