Practicing Gratitude and Self-Acceptance
Remember who you are and what you have — take away the focus from who you aren’t and what you don’t have
On this blog, I love to write about self-help and how one can feel empowered and optimistic in day-to-day living.
There are two main ideas that I advocate throughout a lot my work. Here they are:
- Life doesn’t have to be perfect, or even excellent, for it to be amazing or totally worthwhile. Happiness and fulfilment can be found in the simplest, most readily available places.
- Whilst it is ok to want to better your life, you shouldn’t set goals with the mindset that achieving them will solve your unhappiness and/or dissatisfaction. You should try to accept yourself in the here-and-now and appreciate the journey, whilst making the changes you want for yourself.
And indeed, these are still principles that I try to live by, and certainly ones that I share with others.
Bringing in gratitude
Across the past few weeks to months, I’ve been hearing about the concept of expressing “gratitude” for one’s own life.
This is pretty much what it sounds like: being grateful for the things you have.
Upon doing a little further reading about it, I realised that the concept of self-acceptance I advocate on here can be taken further. I realised it is not just about finding happiness right now: it is about appreciating the life you have by reminding yourself of the things within it.
This strengthens self-acceptance!
Now, self-acceptance is a fantastic start. Saying, “things aren’t great, but that’s ok” is perfectly fine — focusing on self-development is a healthy activity, as long as the focus is on building upon your life instead of overwriting your perceived “bad” parts with the “good”.
You can’t hate yourself into loving yourself, you know?
I realised, however, that we can now take this a step further. Gratitude can be synergised with self-acceptance because gratitude positively charges you with things that you can feel great about, that you might not have brought to the fore before. It can also help you reframe an experience with negative aspects in a more positive (or at least neutral) light.
Let’s talk about all of this a little more.
On “disqualifying the positive”
There’s a concept known as “disqualifying the positive” that will elucidate why gratitude is of great utility.
Disqualifying the positive is a kind of cognitive bias wherein we have a tendency to overlook the good things — the positive — that have happened, and instead home in on the bad. Additionally, it can be that the good things aren’t “good enough” to matter, and/or that the bad things are sufficiently bad to completely overshadow the good.
You know when people say, “you’re being too hard on yourself”?. Yeah — disqualifying the positive can be about that. This kind of advice can help you in being kinder to yourself and giving yourself the compassion you need…encouraging you to practice gratitude.
Learning how to be grateful for what you have stops you from downplaying the positives in your life. You know when someone tells you to think of the positives, and you say, “but they do not count!”? But the thing is, yeah, they do! Don’t be so hard on yourself.
The next step is in asking how you can go about achieving gratitude for yourself. I have compiled a list, so here is how you can make a start with that:
- Celebrate the small victories. They all count. You might not have finished that article, for example, but you have started it!
- Think about all of the good things that have happened. Is the weather to your liking today? Did someone smile at you earlier? Was there a wholesome comment you can remember? This isn’t a reach, I promise!
- Congratulate yourself on the progress you have made so far. Compare where you are now to where you started — you might not be at the “finish line”, but the steps you have taken to get to your current location are to be proud of! I consider this when working on trickier writing projects.
- Commend yourself on how hard you have worked up until this point. Hard work is hard — doing challenging things is not easy, naturally. This is day #8 of my 31 day writing challenge, and I have put in the effort so far even though I am not yet there!
- Be thankful of the people in your life. That friend who is telling you not to be hard on yourself, and is encouraging you to push forward? Be grateful! Tell them how grateful you are for them — it makes a big difference! I am grateful for all of the people that engage with my work and continue to read it, so thank you!
- See each setback as an opportunity to learn. If your performance wasn’t as good this time, think about how you have the freedom to do better in your next attempt!
Now, you might argue, “well, if gratitude is about reminding yourself of things to be grateful of, isn’t that disqualifying the negative?”.
No — being grateful isn’t about ignoring the negative. It is about acknowledging the negative, but filling yourself with positivity about the good so that you and others can be empowered going forward. It shifts the focus from that which you do not have to that which you do have, so you’re not despairing over that which you are perceiving to be lacking in your life.
And on that note:
Feeling positive about the journey
A common modern problem seems to be this: “I’m not where I want to be in life right now.”
In fact, I think that this statement could be applicable to virtually everyone right now — even trivially so.
Let’s contextualise this. When you want something in life, you go after it. When it is finally achieved, you feel satisfied. However, after a while, that satisfaction fades, and you reach that baseline of contentment once again. You might have heard this as being referred to the hedonic treadmill, or as hedonic adaptation.
To get that same satisfaction once again, the standard changes. What then? You strive — no, want — to achieve something bigger and better. So, you do. But then, the cycle repeats. Again and again. You’re forever chasing and forever thinking, “I’m not where I want to be in life right now”, because you have put yourself into the mindset of thinking that only more = happiness.
With gratitude, you’re interrupting that cycle. You’re giving yourself permission to feel happy, positive, and grateful no matter where you are. You fall in love with the journey so much that the destination becomes a bonus and not the bedrock for your self-esteem.
Of course — and this bears repeating — it is ok to go after things in life. It is ok to want to improve your situation, and the solution isn’t to not try. The point here is that a strong feeling of not wanting to be where you are in life can be paralysing. You’re clinging to the future, and you’re suffering through it…so it is time to focus more on the present and what you do have.
Again: you can find a lot.
Finishing up
Everything I have talked about in this article can be summed up with another idea that weaves its way throughout my work, which is:
- I am not where I want to be right now in life, but I know that I can be happy and appreciate things in life, no matter how simple they may seem.
Being grateful isn’t about downplaying or ignoring the more negative aspects of life. It’s about counting your blessings and realising that a lot of good about yourself can be found, all of which can be useful in powering a positive and productive mindset for the present and the road ahead. It can also be about making the best of an unfortunate or dour situation, improving your vitality going forward.
Finally, I’d like to say that I think of gratitude as an advancement on positive affirmations. It isn’t just thinking positively — which can still make all the difference, anyway — it is also about rigorously applying the positives to your current situation. It is about celebrating the progress you have made and the effort you have put in, congratulating yourself on the small victories, appreciating others, thinking about the good things, and seeing every failed opportunity as one to learn from.
All of this will lead to serious growth and contentment, resulting you in being kinder to yourself and others.
Have a wonderful day. Appreciate it for what you can! I know things can be difficult sometimes, but there is always light to be found.
