Starting in July and ending in September, I kept a daily gratitude journal.

My experience

I wanted to try out keeping a consistent daily habit for an extended period of time. A gratitude journal was a great option – it’s simple and doesn’t take much time to do. I consider myself already pretty positive and appreciative, so I was curious to see how much more keeping a gratitude journal would add to my perspective.

Each day I wrote down three things that I was grateful for, and I tried to make the reasonings unique each time. For example, I could write “My Mom” twice, as long I gave a different reason each time. This way, I was forced to continue to find new aspects I was thankful for instead of just repeating the same few things each day.

At first, keeping up with the habit was probably the most difficult part. I had daily reminders go off each morning, so I’d usually have at least one gratitude written at the start of the day. But as the day went on, the journal would often slip my mind, leading me to scramble to fill in the last two gratitudes at night before bed. By day 30, though, I had become accustomed to the habit, and daily reminders were no longer needed for the last 40 days.

Keeping this daily habit has helped me build my discipline to stay consistent with other habits. I started a dream journal toward the end of my 70 days of gratitude, and my experience with this has made staying consistent with that much easier. And while I can’t exactly quantify its use, the journal definitely helped me have a sort of mini-reflection each day. One interesting thing about my gratitude journal is that I haven’t had the urge to go back and read old entries like I do with my diary.

Final takeaways and why I stopped

Like I mentioned earlier, I’d consider myself pretty positive by nature, and I found that the gratitude journal had little additional impact in that aspect. Instead, it almost made gratitude a chore. For example, before, I would notice the morning air, the chill, the breeze, the dew, and I’d smile and be happy. But after starting the journal I would do all that, then think, “Oh, let me go write this down in my gratitude journal.” It made gratitude just another obligation to be done each day, instead of something organic and natural. I think gratitude journals are a good idea for those who aren’t in the right headspace to begin with – those who need a constant reminder to see the positive, who need a consistent way to practice gratitude. Personally, it didn’t provide enough value to justify the effort I was expending on it each day, especially as the college application season began heating up and my daily obligations increased.