How do I practice gratitude…even on the bad days?

By Allison Liddle

I’m a pretty optimistic person. Every day I wake up and think to myself, “another great day in paradise, let’s do this!”

I understand that not everybody wakes up like this and I didn’t wake up like this for many years. Then I started to practice gratitude daily and it completely changed my attitude toward life.

Trust me, there are still those days when I get frustrated or overwhelmed. I actually am having days where I’m pushed to make more decisions and bigger decisions that will impact many more people than every before. I don’t take the responsibility I have lightly, so yes, there can be tough days.

But I’ve found two life-changing practices that turn bad days into awesome, amazing, wonderful, spectacular, pinch-me, happiness days. For real!  

1)    I intentionally look for the good in every single situation. Good or bad. If it’s a tough situation I say out-loud, “What lesson am I learning right now?” Then I typically write it down or teach it as soon as I can, so if someone else is going through a similar situation they can learn the lesson too.

2)    I practice gratitude. I do this in various ways. I will write down what I’m grateful for, but what I enjoy even more is the act of showing gratitude by writing a thank you, sending a text to a friend, surprising my family with a gift, paying for coffee at the coffeeshop for a stranger, giving away a book, something that is an action to express gratitude switches a bad day into an awesome day.

3)    I’m thankful I’m alive. I’ve had about two near death experiences and two cancer scares. When I think that a day is bad I remind myself about how it’s probably not that bad. I’m alive, I have a beautiful family, wonderful friends, amazing opportunities to serve people I absolutely love. How could I see bad in that?

I hope this helps you change your perspective from a bad day to into awesome, amazing, wonderful, spectacular, pinch-me, happiness day.