What I Learned From My ‘30 Days Of Gratitude’ Challenge

Hi there!

I’m still in Colorado with Nate’s side of the family. I’ve been enjoying my time here so much! We climbed a 14er yesterday (Mt. Bierstadt) so we’re all a little sore today, but it was so much fun to climb a 14er for the first time since I spent a summer in Breckinridge in 2014…4 years?? Time flies.

Today I’ve got just a couple things to share with you about what I learned from my June challenge. (Psst: check out all 12 of my monthly challenges here!) Here’s a recap of the goals I’ve done thus far in 2018:

January: Meditation

February: Fresh Flowers

March: Work Out Every Day

April: (Skipped This Month)

May: No Dessert

And in June, I decided to start every day by writing in a gratitude journal! I just used my regular black Moleskine journal, and I sectioned off about 60 pages of it for the month. I’ve been using Moleskines for years, so I have quite the collection of matching journals; I love them and don’t ever plan on changing, unless (heaven forbid!) the company goes out of business.

So, I started each day of June by writing in my gratitude journal for 15 minutes….and friends, I LOVED it!


Here’s what I learned:

  1. It’s pointless to write if you’re not feeling gratitude. At the beginning of the month, I was all concerned about writing different, unique things every day. Then, after doing a little more research (I’m loving The Lively Show podcast right now for all things about alignment and intention!), I found that the main purpose of gratitude is feeling it, not just saying or writing it.
  2. I noticed that I felt much happier in my day when I did this exercise. The days when I was busy in the morning and skipped it, I would feel a little more frazzled and listless. Just recognizing all the good I have in my life (relationships, processions, purpose, health, etc.) made me enjoy my day. It’s not like anything changed when I wrote it down…I just realized it, so I felt happier!
  3. I often wrote gratitude for things that didn’t happen yet. The financial goal I want to hit, the friend I want to gain, the feeling I want to feel…stuff like that. I would often spend the entire 15 minutes just writing about how thankful I felt for stuff that hadn’t happened yet, but I wanted it to happen. I think this is one of the most powerful exercises I’ve done! It put my mindset in the place of, “ooook, Universe! I’m ready for the super rad thing to happen whenever you are!”

This was my second favorite monthly goal I’ve done this year, just after my 31 Days of Meditation. I guess the spiritual goals are more my jam in 2018, and all of the intense health/eating goals aren’t doing much for me!

If you want to read more goals, here you go:

January: Meditation

February: Fresh Flowers

March: Work Out Every Day

April: (Skipped This Month)

May: No Dessert


Wishing you all a wonderful 4th of July! I’m planning on drinking craft beer and watching fireworks in Colorado for this one last day before I return to Austin. To those of you who are in Austin: soak up the heat and eat some BBQ for me!

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terra @ terragoes.com
5 years ago

I think, to your third point, there’s so much power in putting out good vibes into the universe about those things we want to happen, especially the ones we know are going to happen, like hitting a financial goal, going on a trip, or whatnot. Thinking about those things with gratitude is something I’m going to try to be more mindful of.

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