For the last few years I’ve made it a point to start my day with journaling... before I look at my phone, before I read a single piece of news or email. It became a brain dump, and it was genuinely therapeutic. But at a certain point I re-read through some of it and realized that a lot of what I was writing was complaints. Venting about things that happened, detailing frustrations, expressing negative feelings. I think there was real value in getting it out on paper, but when I recognized the trend, I couldn’t stop thinking about the disconnect between how I wanted to show up in the world and what I was actually putting down on paper.
Around that same time I finished Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and stumbled onto a TikTok that went deep on how neuropathways in the brain can actually be rewired. Something clicked and I switched my journaling habit.
I know “gratitude journal” might sound a little cheesy. But four months ago I made the switch, from free-form journaling to exclusively writing about what I was grateful for, either from the last 24 hours or just what I was feeling in that moment. The format is simple: I write the date at the top of a new page, bullet out everything that feels meaningful (big and small), and then draw a star next to the top three things I want to really sit with and soak in that day. I usually close the practice with a little doodle in the margin (something to keep it feeling fun and light).
The entries themselves are all over the map. Sometimes it’s a small moment that made me smile. Sometimes it’s a big win at work or in a creative project. Sometimes it’s literally just a stranger complimenting my shirt, or the sun coming out, or my cat doing something ridiculous.
After doing this daily for months, I’ve noticed real shifts. Things that used to get under my skin have started to lose their grip. I find myself moving through my days actually looking for the good, something I can write about the next morning. And I think that’s the whole thing, really: so much of our experience comes down to what we’re paying attention to, which turns out to be something we have more control over than we might realize.
This was a simple little experiment I ran on myself. But if you’ve been finding yourself quick to jump to irritation or heaviness lately, I’d genuinely encourage trying something like this. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Just a date, a few bullet points, and maybe a doodle. Gratitude is the "theme of the month" at Createscape in November, so I'm here to celebrate all things gratitude and I hope you do too!