Hi friends,

Thanksgiving is a week to slow down, spend time with family, and think about what we’re grateful for. It’s a time of year when everyone, regardless of their life circumstances, thinks about the great things they have in their lives.

If you took time this past week to think about the positive things you have in your life, you may have noticed a sense of ease and even joy afterward. Gratitude doesn’t need to only be thought about one week of the year, it is something that you can practice the other 51 weeks as well.

As Mark Manson put it: “Gratitude is like a muscle. When strong, it makes us resilient. When weak, we are easily broken. You strengthen gratitude through conscious practice. You lose it through unconscious laziness.”

Your gratitude practice can be anything you’d like it to be. Whether that is thinking of one thing you’re grateful for on your commute to work, or you could write it down in a journal. For the past few months, I’ve been writing down 3 things I’m grateful for each morning. It seemed a bit odd at first, but the more I have practiced gratitude, the easier it is to cultivate on a daily basis.

Another tip to foster gratitude is to shift your mindset from “I have to” to “I get to.” Initially, it can feel cheesy and forced, but the end result is that you stop going through life as though it is a chore and start appreciating it for the gift it is. I get to exercise. I get to go to work. I get to walk the dog. I get the opportunity to show kindness. Life is all about how you perceive it, and perception is in your own control.

Just think, the odds of being born are 1 in 400,000,000,000! It is miraculous that you are alive, and even more incredible that you are literate and have access to the internet to read this newsletter.

Until next week,

Kevin