Bring on 2021 – The #GratitudeChallenge.

Happy New Year everybody! Welcome to 2021!

It’s great to be leaving the nightmare of 2020 behind but unfortunately our troubles aren’t quite over yet. So today I’m really excited to bring you this little bit of Mental Kung Fu that was born over talks with my partner over the kitchen table. The #GratitudeChallenge!

The Gratitude Challenge.
Ingredients:
1x Notebook.
1x Glass Jar.
1x Pad of Sticky Notes. |
1x Open Mind.

The Challenge:
Find one thing to feel grateful for every day and write it down! Do this every single day, no matter how tough or bad the day was. That’s the challenge.

The Theory.

You would be forgiven for seeing 2021 as simply another number given the fact that we’re still mostly in lockdown around the world and not much has changed.

It’s easy to give into anger and despair – but the antidote to despair is gratitude.

Being grateful for all the good things around us, even during the darkest of times, focuses our mind on the positive rather than the negative. It makes the experience of living through the challenge that much more bearable. Regardless of where we focus our energy, it doesn’t change the difficulty we’re in. So why waste precious time being resentful?

I spent a lot of last year being resentful and angry at the state of my shoulder and it did nothing to strengthen me, improve me or speed up my recovery. I only succeeded in damaging my relationships and my own soul. I’m grateful for how forgiving my friends and family have been.

So this New Year’s Day, as we can’t go outside, my partner and I discussed how we can bring some positivity into our home and into our lives and thus, the #GratitudeChallenge was born.

Me personally, I’ve bought a nice 2021 diary planner that’s laid out so every day is it’s own page. The challenge here really is writing in it every single day- especially when the day’s been bad.

The great thing about this challenge is that you can add your own spin on it, either personally or as a family and get others involved too! My partner for example had the idea of putting a jar in the kitchen and putting into it at the end of every week a slip with the details of one good thing that happened, so that at the end of the year we could read them all and smile. Sweet!

The whole idea, is to encourage and promote the observing of gratitude in our day to day lives, to counteract the negativity around us. What’s your spin on it?

I’m starting 2021 by being grateful today for my girlfriend’s infinite and wonderful patience- because whilst writing this post I’ve been roasting a leg of lamb for dinner except… I set the oven to grill! That’ll be Pizza for two then!

Happy New Year everybody! Here’s to life eventually returning back to normal and to new memories to be made!

Let me know down in the comments below your thoughts on the #GratitudeChallenge? How will you be doing it?