Written by Ashley Lopez

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Hi everyone, welcome back to Ashley Spills. Ashley, here. You can check out my other posts here.

My Passion Planner provides weekly quotes and challenges.

Weekly quote (April 19 to April 25): “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Weekly challenge (April 19 to April 25): Build a habit of practicing gratitude by writing down three things you are grateful for at the end of each day.

When you reflect on your day today, can you name three things that you are grateful for? I want you to think about this for a moment and steer away from one-word answers. This post is to tell you how to show gratitude.

Go deeper.

Ponder this if you will.

If you’re thankful for your health, what did it physically allow you to do today? Thankful for music, what did music do for you today? If you’re thankful for your friends, what action did your friend take to make you so appreciative of their friendship today?

How to show gratitude

Today is Monday for me and that means automatic Monday blues. What three things can I be grateful for on this Monday? I am grateful for:

1. That my knees are starting to feel better after falling off my skates and I successfully ran one mile today without stopping after not running for 12 days.
2. Spotify providing awesome ‘music for concentration’ playlists to help me focus while writing, studying, reading, etc.—I definitely utilized this today.
3. That my mother and father are starting to find themselves by discovering passions, new hobbies, and becoming diligent in more aspects of their lives. This is specific to today because I received calls from both parents about their new interests. I am so happy for them. It is never too late to learn more about yourself.

It took me a while to come up with three things. I didn’t want to say the usual family, friends, and health because of course I will always be utterly thankful for those. I wanted this weekly challenge to push me to the brim of happiness, gratitude, and being absolutely and obnoxiously thankful for even the little things like being able to go to sleep early.

How you can reflect on what makes you grateful

This week I challenge you to reflect on three things that you are grateful for at the end of each day this week. Write it down. Record a voice clip if you must. Any recording of your thoughts and emotions is worthy of being remembered and reflected on.

I thought of a fourth thing right now (and all the time).

I am absolutely grateful that you’re reading this. You cannot imagine how much courage I had to build up to let myself be vulnerable on the web. You reading this means more than you know because you actually care about my self-expression and for that, I am forever grateful to you.

Thanks for reading, xo.