20 Gratitude Journal Prompts to Start Today for Better Mindset
The act of expressing gratitude has tremendous power to influence your mindset.
When life gets busy and you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, pausing and reflecting with gratitude can improve your mindset quickly!
What You Focus on Amplifies
When you’re intentionally looking for things to be grateful for, you’ll find more things to be grateful for. This is the concept of the law of attraction; positive thoughts bring positive things into your life, while negative thoughts bring more negativity.
Gratitude naturally begets optimism. And who wouldn’t want to increase their optimism? Research has shown that practicing gratitude regularly not only improves physical, mental, and emotional well-being, it also can promote a lasting change in your perspective over time.
One of the best ways to consistently and deliberately practice gratitude is with a gratitude journal.
What is Gratitude Journaling?
Gratitude journaling is a mindfulness practice that’s much more than just keeping a journal about your day to day happenings. It’s intentionally taking note of the good, positive, and beautiful parts of life.
This can look like writing about what’s going right with your day, what you notice and appreciate about yourself or your past, or the beauty of the world around you.
Here are some of the top benefits of keeping a gratitude journal:
Benefits of Having a Gratitude Journal
1. Improves Mindset
Regularly writing about the things you appreciate helps to shift your focus from the bad to the good. When you’re feeling grateful, there will be less room for stress and worry.
Over time, your brain will become accustomed to noticing the good things. You may even begin taking mental notes throughout the day of what you want to write about. This can produce a positive long-term improvement in mindset and an overall sense of greater joy.
2. Strengthens Relationships
Social connections are an important part of our well-being. Your relationships with family and friends will be strengthened as you put into words what you appreciate about them. It may even encourage you to express your gratitude to your loved ones directly.
3. Enhances Sleep Quality
As you think about the best parts of your day, it can help you quiet your mind and relax more fully at night vs. focusing on your troubles and frustrations keeping you from drifting off easily. Gratitude journaling may help you sleep better and longer.
4. Builds Resilience
Do you want to bounce back more quickly from setbacks? Practicing gratitude can help you build resilience. When the going gets tough, people who are used to looking for the good in life will be more readily able to move forward with optimism and a more hopeful outlook.
5. Improves Physical Health
Practicing gratitude may have a positive impact on physical health and well-being. This may include reducing stress and inflammation in the body, reducing mood issues and feelings of anxiousness, and reducing risk for serious, long-term health problems.
How to Start a Gratitude Journal Today
You can use a beautiful journal, a spiral notebook, an app on your phone, or an electronic document. You can even use pictures or drawings to make a visual journal.
Consistency is important to experience the greatest benefits. However, any time that you pause to reflect with gratitude, you have the potential to improve your mindset and well-being.
Find what works for you! You don’t have to do it every day. Weekly gratitude journals also may be effective at improving your happiness and mindset.
Tips to make it happen:
- Keep a gratitude journal and pen by your bed, or somewhere you’ll see it.
- Add gratitude journaling into your routines. Habit stack your gratitude practice to something that you’re already doing.
- Don’t overthink it. It’s ok to repeat the same things that you’re grateful for.
- Keep it short and sweet. If the time commitment is something that holds you back, try setting a timer for just a minute or two.
20 Gratitude Journal Prompts
Use these journal prompts to get you started when you aren’t sure what to journal about.
“What are you grateful for today?” Prompts
Consider this most basic gratitude journal prompt. You can use this question with a specific intention in mind to direct your focus. This would look like:
1. What about your health are you grateful for today?
2. What about your career are you grateful for today?
3. What experiences are you grateful for today?
4. What about your family are you grateful for today?
5. What about the present moment are you grateful for today?
6. What about the future are you grateful for today?
7. What about your home are you grateful for today?
Some days you might feel like diving a little deeper with one of the following prompts:
8. What is one thing, big or small, that brought you joy today? Why?
9. Describe three things in nature that you’re grateful for.
10. Write about a time when someone treated you with kindness.
11. What is something that you have read or watched recently that has inspired you?
12. Write down something that’s going well in your life.
13. How can you enjoy where you are right now?
14. What are three of your best qualities?
15. How have you overcome challenges in the past and how can you be resilient going forward?
16. What brings peace into your life?
17. What is something that you appreciate about yourself?
18. What are you looking forward to?
19. Write about something beautiful that you saw today.
20. What were some of the highlights of your day?
When picking a journal prompt, feel free to choose what feels good. You don’t need to force yourself to be grateful or answer a specific question. You can repeat the same prompt as often as you’d like.
Start Journaling Today for Better Mindset
Any type of journaling can give a boost to your well-being. If you want to change your mindset, gratitude journaling in particular is sure to leave you feeling blessed and more optimistic.
Starting a gratitude journal is a simple habit that can help you see the goodness in your life and can have a profound impact on your mindset and how you feel mentally, emotionally, and physically.
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