Hello dear friends Caroline here from the ambassador team, ‘Tis the season of thanksgiving we begin to reflect on that of which we are grateful for. It is a wonderful exercise to practice listing things we are grateful for and often helps us have a positive mindset when we look at even the smallest reasons to be thankful for each day.

So today I wanted to talk about Gratitude Journaling, and show you this thanksgiving season how to start a gratitude log that will continue on throughout the year.

So what is gratitude journaling? It's a journal entry of either one sentence or several paragraphs of your expression towards something(s) that you feel grateful for that particular day. It can be one thing that made your day special or it can be an answer to a journaling prompt that makes you think about a specific subject that has made you thankful. Gratitude journaling is an extremely helpful activity for having a positive mindset and for finding joy even on the not so great days, and according to the mayo clinic, practicing gratitude can help improve sleep, mood and immunity!

So how perfect is it to start gratitude journaling during thanksgiving! 

All you’ll need to get started is your favorite journal and a pen. I'm using both archer and olive dotted grid notebook and black fine liner                                                 (optional stickers or washi if you like to decorate though totally not necessary)

I use my bullet journal  each month to create a gratitude log where I set aside a spread to log a sentence a day of something I’m thankful for, however if you want to go big you can delegate an entire notebook just for gratitude journaling, which I’ll talk more about below.

To set a gratitude spread use your fine liner and write the title “gratitude log” (and some optional decor) and list the numbers of the days of that month, for November we will do 30 days.

From here you are ready to start, just set a reminder on your phone for the next 30 days to write on your gratitude log, each day you will reflect on one thing that happened that day that makes you feel thankful, keep it simple and genuine, if your day wasn't great, still try to find something to write about, it can be as simple as “I got through today” or “my morning coffee” 

You’ll notice that each day there will be at least one thing to be grateful for, and that will make you feel good. 

If you love to express yourself or want to spend more time journaling you can also start a gratitude journal. This is a whole notebook set aside for daily gratitude, you can practice the same method of finding one (or a few things) that you're grateful for each day, or you can look up gratitude journaling prompts to answer, and there’s also lots of inspiration on the instagram journaling community, some of my favorites journals are Connie's @coco.plans and Whitney's @whitsjournal to name a few! 

If you want to try gratitude journaling now, check out the free template you can follow along!

For more inspiration check out the video where I show a few of my gratitude logs, and how I set up one monthly on my bullet journal: