Every November in my community I have a Gratitude Challenge- and here we begin again, another year in the books, another year has passed and delivered us here.
What is gratitude? According to the dictionary it is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness.
The Gratitude Challenge 2025 is this:
-Write three gratitude each day of the month starting now- EXCEPT for Thanksgiving week.
Here’s what to do Thanksgiving week:
-Write 10 gratitudes each day Sunday-Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
-Write 100 gratitudes on Thursday. (It may take all day, that’s okay.)
Some things to note:
-If you are already writing more gratitudes, commit to an increase in whatever you are doing.
-Do not duplicate gratitudes. (It’s a challenge, remember?)
-Find a time of day that consistently works for you to write. Before bed is a great time as you get to go to sleep with gratitudes in your head.
-If you get off track, just get right back on!
-Handwrite.
-Before and after Thanksgiving week you ramp up and ramp down- you get to decide how you want to continue.
Extra credit this year:
-When writing your gratitudes, write at least on thing per day that you are grateful for about yourself. It can be anything.
There will be prizes! Details on how to enter and win in the challenge included in each Sunday newsletter- subscribe on the home page of this site.
Extra, extra credit you can give yourself: When you write down what you are grateful for, also write down WHY you are grateful for it- at the very least, take a moment to think about that. This practice makes writing your gratitudes much more powerful.
Create your own challenge! If my format doesn’t suit you, create your own. The whole point of focusing on gratitude in a big way is that the more you look for things to be grateful for, the more things you notice. You start to realize that your life is full of things to be grateful for and if you haven’t been looking, you might have been missing them.
AND being grateful and handwriting gets your brain onboard- the “brain antenna” goes up and is looking around. You may notice yourself start to take actions that will lead you to be more grateful for yourself and who you are. Everything is possible!
This is where we begin. Begin today.