Lessons Learned from Expressing Gratitude Every Day for 14 Days

Gurus love gratitude.

Write in your gratitude journal every morning, they say.

Namaste namaste namaste.

Every day write 3 things you’re grateful for, they say.

Namaste namaste namaste.

Visualisations, affirmations, gratitude.

Namaste namaste namaste.

But does expressing gratitude actually work?

I expressed gratitude every day for 14 days as part of a group challenge.

If I didn’t express gratitude, my bank account would take a hit to the tune of one Hamilton.

So obviously my adherence was tight and I showed up every day, smiling into the camera, and saying stuff to the effect of…

I’m grateful for my brother.
I’m grateful for Wim Hof.
I’m grateful for music.

If you’re asking me whether expressing gratitude every day works…

You’d first have to tell me what you mean by “works”.

Why do people want to express gratitude in the first place?

I think most people doing these gratitude challenges do it without thinking too much because a Tony Robbins type told them about positive energy and the universe while shovelling them into their marketing funnel.

But for me, expressing gratitude has always been grounded in this one belief:

Language influences thought.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity posits that the words you use influence your cognitive processes and world view.

I’ve personally witnessed this phenomenon myself on two occasions where I tried to stop complaining for a whole month.

Expressing gratitude made me happier too.

There’s no doubt that expressing gratitude every day for 14 days made me happier.

I can’t speak to the effect it had beyond the 14-day period (although I do feel grateful as a default state).

But I know that during the challenge, expressing gratitude gave me a real noticeable boost.

I had a few off days during the challenge where I was feeling down or not-quite-myself and I found expressing gratitude always worked like a mental reset.

Even if I was feeling extremely negative, expressing gratitude just plain worked to get me back on an even keel.

It’s kinda like going to the gym.

But I couldn’t help but feel there was something lacking.

Expressing gratitude felt like “action-faking”.

Expressing gratitude wasn’t enough.

I’m not the only one in that gratitude challenge who felt that way.

One member said he was so dissatisfied with simply expressing gratitude that he had to change his approach to the challenge.

Instead of merely saying what he was grateful for, he worked to improve upon the thing he was grateful for.

Case in point:

He was grateful for water, so he decided to actually ACT in a way that showed his gratitude.

Talk is cheap. ACT grateful.

He noticed he was using too many plastic water bottles, which are bad for the environment.

So, in accordance with someone who is TRULY grateful for water, he decided to stop buying those plastic water bottles and instead bought one reusable bottle so he could use tap water over and over again.

I loved this so much that I did the same thing.

Imagine the possibilities with THIS kind of gratitude.

You’re grateful for water, so you stop using plastic water bottles.

Well… What about next week when you’re grateful for water again?

You can still improve and act on that gratitude:

Buy a bottle of water for a homeless person.
Stop leaving the tap running when you don’t need it.
Contribute to a water charity so people in the third world can drink clean water.

This can go on and on and on and be applied to anything you are grateful for.

I was dissatisfied during the challenge, so my twist was to express gratitude for people.

But actually tell the people you’re grateful for them!

What good is it saying, “I’m grateful for my brother”, if your brother doesn’t know?

If you’re grateful for someone…

Call them
Send them an email
Do something nice for them

It can be someone you’re close to, someone you admire, or someone you’ve never met before.

A letter of thanks can really brighten someone’s day.

A small act of kindness goes a long way.

I don’t want flowers at my funeral.

A lot of people say they don’t want flowers at their funeral. Instead they want that money given to a children’s hospice or something like that.

Sometimes you can express gratitude for someone by acting in a way that they would approve of, acting in a way that redistributes the good feelings to people who really need it.

Sure, express gratitude to Jordan Peterson. But be creative in the way you do it.

That guy meets hundreds of grateful people a day.

I like to express my gratitude by buying products people are selling (even if I don’t use them) or writing nice blog posts about them.

You could also be a force for good in someone else’s life.

There’s this really cool company called Kiva where you can loan money to third-world entrepreneurs to help them on their feet.

A woman in Kenya needs a loan to invest in dairy cows to improve her milk vending business.
A refugee woman in Lebanon wants to get her sewing business started but can’t afford a sewing machine.
Farmers, artisans, craftsmen, students all need help and you can be the help with zero risk.

You can help that woman with a stroller who is struggling down a steep flight of stairs.

You can actually listen when a friend comes to you with their concerns.

You can be the person someone else is grateful for.

Or you can just continue saying…

Today I’m grateful for…

Today I express gratitude for…

Namaste namaste namaste.