Counting your blessings is not a new concept. Why is it recommended and why does it lead to a happier life?
The basic idea is that it forces you to focus on the good things in your life instead of the bad. That will help you to feel more fortunate and give you a brighter perspective about your current situation and the future.
The real key to success with this principle is in the details. Most people think only about the big stuff when they go to count their blessings: health, wealth, family, friends, etc. Those are certainly important, but they are almost too big to have practical application to our daily lives. For one thing, it doesn’t take a lot of focus to rattle off the big things. For another, it doesn’t help much when you are dealing with concrete issues, such as learning that your car needs a new clutch, for instance.
So, here’s what I recommend: Take some time each morning—and more often, if needed—to focus on the little blessings of the previous day. What do I mean by the little blessings? Here are a few examples of my blessings from the last week*:
Sunny days (We don’t take those for granted in Seattle!)
Finding the perfect skirt at a reasonable price for an upcoming wedding
An exuberant “I love you!” in an email from a long-time friend
Checks in the mail (for my business)
This is just a sampling. I can usually come up with at least five things every morning and some of them, like checks in the mail, might occur several times a week. The important thing is to take the time each day to go back through the last 24 hours to look for those blessings and acknowledge them. It will help you to feel better about your daily life and more optimistic about the future.
How do you apply this concept when things aren’t going so well? The truth is, we are all “blessed” with good experiences and bad experiences every day. The car repair issue I mentioned above recently happened to me.* I could have let it ruin my day, but I decided not to. I focused on the fact that I had a very relaxing and enjoyable day before I learned that news, that I found the perfect skirt, that the sun was shining, and that the deluxe turkey cranberry sandwich I had for lunch was delicious.
How can those seemingly small joys make up for having to schedule a very expensive car repair? It is not about balancing things out. Some days will always be better than others. There isn’t anything you can do about that. What you can do, though, is shift your focus.
I promise you that if you take the time to look for blessings, you will find them, and if you take the time to acknowledge and savor them, you will feel better about your life. That will make for a happier YOU and make those around you happier, too.
* This post was originally written in 2014 so the examples are old but the advice is still relevant :).
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