Thank You Thursdays #2: Grateful On Purpose

I almost forgot this email.🫣 In week two. 😩

I almost forgot Thank You Thursdays. 🫣

In week two. 😩

This feels on brand. 🤦🏿‍♂️

Last week I told you exactly what I was going to do this week:

• give you an overview of the Grateful On Purpose practices

• explain why they matter

• tell you what they are

• and, most importantly, show you how they can help you enjoy the experience of living life more

So here we are.

Barely. 😂

First, what does “Grateful On Purpose” even mean?

I think “be grateful” is good great advice.

It’s also a little vague.

And a legit response is… HOW?

What do I actually DO when I want to be more grateful?

Especially when I don’t feel grateful, when something sucks, or when there are completely legitimate things happening in my life that I am absolutely NOT grateful for.

I believe gratitude doesn’t require pretending.

What’s good is still good. What sucks still sucks. Neither cancels the other.

And sometimes practicing gratitude is simply learning how to notice more of the whole truth.

That’s what I mean when I talk about Practical Gratitude.

And Grateful On Purpose is basically my collection of ways to actually practice it.

Eight of them, specifically.

At least for now. 👀

The 8 Grateful On Purpose Practices

1. The Gratitude Ladder

Change your position to change your perspective.

Sometimes when you step up the ladder 🪜, you can see something you can’t see from your current level.

On level one, you see what you’re grateful for. Level two, you see what people you know might be grateful for. Level three, you see what people you don’t know might be grateful for.

2. Gratitude Everywhen ♾️

Instead of only asking what you’re grateful for RIGHT NOW, look backward, look around, and look forward.

What WAS good?

What IS good?

What might be good someday?

Life can be a source of infinite gratitude if we let it be.

3. The Gratitude Chain

Take one thing you appreciate and trace it backward.

Who helped make it possible?

What had to happen?

What work, people, inventions, decisions, accidents, circumstances, sacrifices, etc. are connected to this one thing you usually experience without thinking about any of that?

It can get ridiculous pretty quickly.

Which leads nicely into…

4. One Word Gratitude

Pick one word.

That’s it.

Then see how many reasons that ONE word gives you to be grateful.

I sometimes call this the simplest, most habit-forming gratitude practice. There’s a lot more hiding inside a single word than you might think.

5. Get-To Gratitude

“I have to…”

becomes…

“I get to…”

Not because every responsibility is fun.

Not because every obligation feels good.

And DEFINITELY not because you should use gratitude to guilt yourself into enjoying something you hate.

Sometimes there is simply a “get to” hiding somewhere inside the “have to.”

This practice helps you notice it.

6. Ridiculous Gratitude

This is exactly what it sounds like.

Being grateful for ridiculously small, normal, overlooked things.

Automatic doors.

Warm water.

Your phone remembering a password you definitely do not remember.

Breathing without having to remind yourself to breathe.

And, yes…

Gratitude for being able to use the bathroom. 😏

7. 100 Reasons Right Now

Find 100 reasons to be grateful without leaving the moment you’re currently in.

Not your entire life.

Not your entire history.

RIGHT NOW.

It sounds harder than it is.

And then somewhere along the way it becomes harder in a completely different way:

You start realizing how much you normally overlook.

8. 100 Minutes of Gratitude

This one is less about finding MORE things and more about staying with gratitude LONGER.

Because sometimes we notice something good for approximately 1.7 seconds…

“oh that’s nice…”

…and immediately move on to the next problem.

What happens when you stay?

We’ll talk about that too.

So why eight different practices?

Because you can experience gratitude in multiple ways.

You don’t HAVE to journal every morning.

You don’t HAVE to write three things every night.

You don’t HAVE to walk around trying to feel thankful all day.

And you definitely don’t have to pretend everything is good.

Sometimes you need to change your perspective.

Sometimes you need to trace something backward.

Sometimes you need ONE WORD.

Sometimes you need to notice something ridiculously small.

Sometimes you need 100 reasons.

Sometimes you just need to stay with what’s good a little longer before life distracts you again.

The practices are different.

The purpose is pretty much the same:

Notice more of what is good and true without ignoring what is hard and true.

And maybe…

enjoy the experience of living life a little more.

Not because everything about your life is enjoyable.

But because you stop overlooking so much of what is.

Okay.

Overview complete. ✅

Next Thursday, we start with The Gratitude Ladder and actually practice this stuff together.

If you want to see all eight before then, I finally gave them a proper home at:

GratefulOnPurpose.com

And to keep tradition going…

Which of those eight practices sounds the most interesting to you right now?

Hit reply and tell me.

I may or may not use your answer to decide how much I talk about it when we get there. 👀

See you next Thursday.

Hopefully before 8pm. 😂

— Conrad