How to cultivate the attitude of gratitude
Thankfully, the gratitude superpower is not reserved for heroes with capes. Anyone who wants it can cultivate it. Any one (or all) of these evidence-based steps will help you change your attitude for the long term:
- Discipline your thoughts. As the writer of Proverbs warned many thousands of years ago: “Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.” (Proverbs 4:23 NCV). When you hear about a gathering and think, they didn’t invite me, can you be glad for those who are enjoying the event? Is there potentially a more generous explanation for their action? We can stop and change where our thoughts go – and thus where our emotions go.
- Direct a wandering mind. Similarly, researchers are currently looking into mind-wandering as a source of discontentment. We spend an estimated one-third to one-half of our waking lives with a wandering mind. For some, this leads to what psychologists call “negative rumination” – in other words, your mind wanders to thinking about why the kids never call. Things change when we ruminate on pleasant memories instead. (For more on how and why to do more of this, look up Philippians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 10:5, and Ephesians 4:22-32.)
- Praise others. When we practice praise, we become more grateful. We develop a habit of being on the lookout for good (gratitude) and calling attention to it (praise). I’ve written about this before, but speaking our gratitude out loud is key. Gratitude expressed audibly appears to “wake our brains up.” It creates a cycle in which we crave it more. (This can especially make our spouses come alive. For example, in my For Women Only research, we found that a simple “thank you” is a man’s equivalent of “I love you.”)
- Look for chances to be kind. After years of research for our 30-Day Kindness Challenge (and book The Kindness Challenge) we quantified the power of focused kindness toward another person to transform our own We found three actions anyone can do to transform any relationship. The first is to Say nothing negative about your person for thirty days – either to them or about them to someone else. It is amazing how this changes any unseen tendencies to be discontent. (Discover the other two actions by taking the challenge. It may be the best thing you do in 2024; we found that 89% of relationships improved!)
- Use discontentment triggers as opportunities to reset your defaults. Finally, this one will help you do all of the above. When that old factory setting of discontentment tries to slip back in, look at what triggered it – and use it as a very specific opportunity to reset your defaults. Type these four questions into your phone’s notes or keep them handy (feel free to add your own), and each time you are discontented ask yourself:
- How can this perceived negative help me grow? (e.g. increased patience, dependence, faith)
- How can I be grateful for my life as it is right now?
- How might this situation be bigger than me? (e.g. who else is involved, watching, suffering?)
- What aspect of God’s character is this challenge teaching me?
Next week we’ll explore another simple superpower – this one with the potential to open up more playfulness and discovery in our relationships (especially our marriage relationship) than we ever thought possible.
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