My Gratitude Journal

By Danielle Nye Poulter

Grateful people are happy people. I’ve learned this lesson through a little experiment I started a few years ago. I like writing in a journal, but it’s intimidating to try to write every day because I’m afraid I’ll get behind and then it will take me forever to catch up.

Instead, I bought a small notebook. Every night after I read my scriptures, I take just a few minutes to write about one thing I feel grateful for that day. Because the pages are small, there’s no pressure to write a lot, but I have to be creative to think of something new to be grateful for every day.

Sometimes I feel grateful for an answer to prayer that day, or for an example in the scriptures. Other times it’s more simple, like being grateful for the smell of lilacs, or my little sister who always gets my jokes, or a favorite food.

By focusing on things I’m grateful for, it makes me realize how blessed I am. It also makes my problems seem like not such a big deal. Plus, my gratitude journals are something my children and grandchildren can read someday, and they will learn a lot about me from those short, simple entries. I’m grateful for that, and being grateful makes me happy.