6 Habits of Highly Grateful People

By: Jeremy Adam Smith

Many people are unskilled at expressing gratitude. Most of us usually take far too much for granted. Our health, our talents, our children, our families.

Gratitude is the mental tool we use to remind ourselves of the good stuff. It helps us to see the things that don’t make it onto our lists of problems to be solved. It’s a bright red paintbrush we apply to otherwise-invisible blessings, like clean streets or health or enough food to eat.

Gratitude doesn’t make problems and threats disappear. The threats are indeed real, but at that moment, they exist only in memory or imagination. I am the threat; it is me who is wearing myself out with worry.

That’s when I need to turn on the gratitude. If I do that enough, gratitude might just become a habit. It means,, that I increase my chances of psychologically surviving hard times, that I stand a chance to be happier in the good times. I’m not ignoring the threats; I’m appreciating the resources and people that might help me face those threats.

Here then are some tips for how you and I can become one of those fantastically grateful people.

1. Once in a while, they think about death and loss - Contemplating endings really does make you more grateful for the life you currently have.

When you find yourself taking a good thing for granted, try giving it up for a little while.

For example, in one study, the happiest were the ones who abstained from chocolate. And who were the least happy? The people who binged. That’s the power of gratitude!

2. They take the time to smell the roses - And they also smell the coffee, the bread baking in the oven, the aroma of a new car - whatever gives them pleasure.

The practice of mindfulness makes intuitive sense - Humans are adaptive creatures, and we will adapt even to the good things. When we do this value starts to drop; we start to take loved ones for granted.

When this happens, take a step back - and imagine your life without them. Then try savoring their presence, just like you would a rose. Or a new car. Whatever! The point is, absence may just make the heart grow grateful.

3. They take the good things as gifts, not birthrights - What’s the opposite of gratitude? Entitlement—the attitude that people owe you something just because you’re so very special.

A preoccupation with the self can cause us to forget our benefits or to feel that we are owed things from others and therefore have no reason to feel thankful. Humans need other people to grow our food and heal our injuries; we need love, and for that we need family, partners, friends, and pets.

“The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for, not a right to be claimed.”

4. They’re grateful to people, not just things - People will glow in gratitude. Thanking the guy who makes your coffee can strengthen social bonds—in part by deepening our understanding of how we’re interconnected with other people.

5. They mention the pancakes - Grateful people are habitually specific. They don’t say, “I love you because you’re just so wonderfully wonderful, you!” Instead, the really skilled grateful person will say: “I love you for the pancakes you make when you see I’m hungry and the way you massage my feet after work even when you’re really tired and how you give me hugs when I’m sad so that I’ll feel better!”
This makes the expression of gratitude feel more authentic, for it reveals that the thanker was genuinely paying attention and isn’t just going through the motions. The richest thank you’s will acknowledge intentions

Remember: Gratitude thrives on specificity!

6. They thank outside the box - But here’s who the really tough-minded grateful person thanks: the boyfriend who dumped her, the homeless person who asked for change, the boss who laid him off. We’re graduating from Basic to Advanced Gratitude here.

In such moments gratitude becomes —a way of thinking about the world that can help us turn disaster into a stepping-stone. If we’re willing and able to look, we can find a reason to feel grateful even to people who have harmed us. We can thank that boyfriend for being brave enough to end a relationship that wasn’t working; the homeless person for reminding us of our advantages and vulnerability; the boss, for forcing us to face new challenges.

That’s what truly, fantastically grateful people do. Can you? ■