Public Gratitudes
Close to a decade ago I decided to take on the 30 days of Gratitude challenge. I wanted a place to track my 3 daily gratitudes (yes, I made up the pluralization) that back in 2012 would be easy to get to. At the time I didn’t use Facebook and decided that would be a good spot. Long story short, 30 days turned into years of not only writing 3 things daily, I did it publicly.
If you decide to try a 30 day gratitude challenge, the public part is optional and not a critical part. I just ended up with some interesting extra benefits.
One my 1 year anniversary I wrote about the benefits it brought. Here’s a copy of what I wrote back then.
When I made my first post, I realized that sharing my daily gatitudes publicly had some significance, but I really had no idea what I was starting. My first post implies that I thought the main impact was accountability. I was also a little apprehensive of whether I wanted to be so open on a semi-public forum (at the time I has some security options in place).
Here’s what I got out of a year of Public Displays of Gratitude ™
1. Happier. The act of stopping and finding gratitude daily made me happier. It started almost right away. When I’m happy I get happier and when I’m not feeling so great I still take time to find gratitude and I find it extremely helpful. If I didn‘t do it every day though, I’d have a hard time getting to gratitude from a grumpy mood. I actually found that it took some practice to remember what gratitude even felt like in the beginning. I’m pretty sure it’s a muscle 🙂
2. Upgraded perspective/ gratitude radar. It soon (weeks) had pretty broad effects because I was constantly on the look-out for things to be grateful for. Especially in the beginning when it was a little harder, I didn’t want to get to the end of the day without my minimum of 3. I would go places and think “I wonder what will happen here that I can be grateful for.” Therefore I actively cultivated a more positive outlook.
3. Memories. I now have a year’s worth of my life captured in moments of my happiness. I just scanned through and it was a hoot. It’s amazing to scan back to a random point in time and instantly be transported to what was going on. Trust me, it is way more fun too look back through a joyful lens than a journal of gripes. It’s also fun to look back at what has changed and what hasn’t.
4. Facebook is a positive place for me. I sometimes forget that not everyone has Facebook as a place on the web that brings joy and positive interactions. By posting positively, other people posted more positive things and I attracted more positive friends on Facebook. I love that others have adopted the practice or something similar. If I inspired you or others you know to start a similar habit (publicly or not), I’d love to hear about it.
5. Freedom. Before this is was slightly paranoid about putting anything on Facebook or really anywhere else. I wanted everything locked down etc. This has changed me. I became more open about who I am and what I care about. For example, it helped me develop my beliefs around the importance of bringing our whole selves to all aspects of our lives. Now my Facebook account is totally open to the world. The only times I reduce the scope of these posts are when my Surface or Phone Facebook apps have a strict default and I forget to change it. I still think before I type, but it just doesn’t worry me.
6. Reputation. I guess it makes sense that if you do something a little different, publicly, for a year, you start to get known for it, but it totally caught me off guard. I’ll occasionally have someone say something (completely unrelated to FB or anything seemingly related) like “since you care about happiness” or some other statement that reminds me that this has really become a part of how people see me (and I love that btw).
7. Relationships. In all sorts of surprising little ways, I build or strengthened relationships with real people. (a couple of examples are in the next points).
8. Inviting others to share their gratitude. I started to have amazing hallway talk at work. This might have been the most shocking outcome to me. Facebook friends started conversations in person with me with statements like “Your gratitude for X made me realize that I’m grateful for Y.” I still have a crystal clear memory of the first time this happened. I didn’t directly give anyone permission, but in a sense by being open and demonstrating that I value this aspect of our human experience, others felt they could tell me how they felt without wondering if I would find it odd.
9. Inspiring others or brightening someone’s day. I can’t tell you how amazing it makes me feel to have someone tell me that a simple post I make on Facebook has an impact. It’s never about something special or profound, but simply my willingness to share my gratitude. I think in part it’s that in our current society we’ve lose touch of simple things like sharing your joy and any reminder of it helps us remember a little bit more of what it is to be human. Or maybe it’s just that a positive note stands out from the on slot of negativity that can be so common. My point is that I believe every single one of us has impact on each other. It is our choice what that influence looks like. When I first started, my biggest concern was running out of things to be grateful for before the month was up and sounding stupid to people. If you have any desire to try it out, please do. You will be amazed.
10. Encouragement, inspiration and others brightening my day. It has been amazing the encouragement I’ve gotten around this project. I love that you like, comment, mention, or simply read an occasional post. I feel like I have so many supportive people in my life. The conversations, similar posts, and any other way my openness with gratitude has led to me getting to know more of you guys is inspiring to me. There have been more than a few times where a comment from one of you absolutely made my day. So thank you.
For all of these reasons I am so grateful that I have done this for a year. Happy anniversary to myself and gratitude.
