The Gratitude Experiment

The Beginning

A little over a month ago my sister started talking about a book she had purchased. She said the book was about gratitude, and had practices to perform every day. The book was called The Magic by Rhonda Byrne. I had heard of The Secret and The Law of Attraction, and I had also been exposed to various teachings relating to the subject over the years. However, I had never truly immersed myself in any of these systems.

At first I didn’t want to buy the book myself, so I just did some of the exercises my sister told me about. I quickly found the practices to be overwhelming, though. Especially because I got the instructions verbally each day and I couldn’t look back at them if I needed to.

I decided to just do the first couple of activities she had mentioned, which I would repeat on a daily basis throughout the duration of the book if I had purchased it, anyway. I have always felt like doing something, even imperfectly, is usually better than doing nothing at all.

For the next several days I made a list of 10 things (called 10 Blessings) that I was grateful for each morning and I thought about the best thing that happened each day just before going to sleep each night. Each item on the list started with “I am truly grateful for…(whatever I was grateful for that day) because…(the reason I was grateful for it). After finishing the list I read through each item and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you” following each one.

In the past I have always rolled my eyes at exercises requiring me to write things down. I’ve always just done the exercises in my head, figuring that would be just as effective. In this case I took the extra time it took to write everything out. I created a Google docs so I could access it with my phone or my laptop for convenience.

After a couple days of just writing my gratitude statements down each day I noticed a shift in my thoughts and behaviors. I started noticing that I felt gratitude for even the simplest things throughout the day. At first, I wanted to be prepared with things to add to my list the next morning. But then I realized that I started to feel genuine gratitude for all the positive things that were happening.

I felt a lot better after just making my list each day, but I could tell that my sister was experiencing even bigger changes in her thoughts and outcomes from using the book. I finally decided to spend nine dollars and buy the book so I could do the practice. The only thing I regret about the purchase was waiting so long to do it.

The Experiment

The book has activities for 28 days. In addition to writing a list of ten things you are grateful for each day and feeling gratitude for the best thing that happened each night, each day has another gratitude practice that focuses on key areas of your life. The subject of the third activity each day is Relationships, Health, Money, Career, or Your Desires.

There is a short chapter to read each day explaining the daily gratitude practices. Most were quick, but there were a few days with more time-consuming assignments.

Even though doing the daily tasks in the book doesn’t take very long, there is still a temptation to skip working on them when you get busy. I have to admit that it actually took me 35 days to finish the book because I had a few days where I felt overwhelmed with everything I had to get done. I did the morning and bedtime practices every day, though.

The author of the book suggests that if you don’t do your activities for the day, that you should go back three days and continue from there. The reasoning for this procedure is that you lose momentum if you take a day off. I didn’t do that, because I felt like doing my regular daily practices would keep my momentum going.

In retrospect, I feel like the author was correct, and that I did lose some momentum by not doing a chapter every day. I’ve heard some people say that doing your gratitude practices should be treated and prioritized like brushing your teeth; most people probably wouldn’t skip that when they get busy.

The Results

The Low Points

Just like anything else in life, there were great days and there were days where it was hard to come up with ten things to be grateful for. There were even days where very unpleasant things happened.

One thing I noticed consistently throughout my experiment was that it became easier each day to find things to be grateful for, even when things were not going the way I would like them to go. One excellent example of this was the day I went swimming in the ocean in spite of the fact that the water could best be described as ‘angry and violent.’ As I was walking out of the water after getting thrown around, a wave hit my leg so hard that I felt a big “pop” and instantly felt pain at the top of my right hamstring.

I had a moment of terror where I wasn’t sure how extensive the damage might be, or whether or not I would be able to walk across the beach to get back to the car. When I figured out I could walk I was instantly grateful in spite of the pain. I very slowly walked back to the car and made it home.

My injury happened on day two of a five-day weekend (I took a couple of extra days off over Labor Day weekend). While I was upset that I was uncomfortable for the rest of my holiday, and couldn’t do many of the things I had planned to do, I was grateful that I didn’t have to try to sit at a computer all day when most positions were uncomfortable.

I was again grateful when I was able to see my chiropractor a couple of days later and he worked on my leg and my lower back, which had also taken a beating. I have an amazing chiropractor who has treated my family and me for everything from car and workplace accidents to krav maga injuries (and a couple of swimming injuries now, too).

When I went back to work I was unable to sit in my office chair for more than 15 minutes due to the discomfort. I was grateful that day that I work remotely and own an exercise ball that I was able to sit on throughout the work day.

The High Points

In addition to being able to stay more positive during times that were less enjoyable, I experienced many exciting miracles during the experiment. I was glad I kept a journal, because there were so many positive outcomes that remembering everything would have been difficult. I will share some of the highlights.

One thing I noticed was that my son seemed to be willing to spend more time with me. He’s a good son, but he’s 17 and times like that are definitely less frequent now.

After several months of having an increasing workload at my job, my company decided to change our procedure. This has made finishing my work each day much more manageable and enjoyable.

In spite of my unfortunate beach accident, my overall health is pretty good. I am still healing, but I feel better all the time and I don’t have any major health problems.

There were several times where I received unexpected amounts of extra money. I got $100 dollars from my bank for opening an account and setting up direct deposit, even though I opened the account about 10 years ago. I also got about $100 from a class action settlement I had gotten a letter about months before, but had forgotten about. I did not expect to get much, if anything, out of it at the time. I also had several other smaller amounts of money come in, including a Vocal bonus for five dollars that put me past the threshold to request a withdrawal, a $20 gift card from my company for my work anniversary, and various other smaller amounts of money that showed up randomly.

Conclusion

I feel like this book is worth several times more than the nine dollars I paid for it. Even without the extra money I gained, I would buy it again. Being able to improve your outlook and the way you view your life is absolutely priceless.

The author gives suggestions at the end of the book to “keep the magic going,” but I have restarted the book from the beginning. I feel like the structure is beneficial for me. This time I plan to do a chapter every day, but if something happens that I have to skip a day, I will go back three days, as the author suggests. I am betting the second time through will be even better.