“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” - John F. Kennedy

It’s a universally acknowledged truth that maintaining gratitude through the trials and tribulations of life is easier said than done. We talk about gratitude as a simple practice, slapping it on home decor and pushing journals toward people who are already struggling to find the words to express how they’re feeling. 

When you’re a busy woman navigating seasons that feel impossible, many of the common gratitude rituals might fall flat. Morning journaling and nightly reflections aren’t always successful, grounding routines when you’re faced with uncertainty, loss, or grappling with lack of control. 

So what is the essential golden rule of gratitude? 

 Don’t just appreciate what’s good—learn to live gratefully through life’s challenges. 

The GoBundance Woman is an ambitious, growth-oriented woman who requires depth, exhibits resilience, and craves meaning, not toxic positivity that reflects a surface-level, performative glow. She’s real, imperfect, and proud of the progress she makes through mistakes, setbacks and life’s undulations. With the GoBundance Women mindset, you can not only live gratefully, but you can cultivate an abundance of gratitude and live life with a glass half full.

Gratitude vs. Living Gratefully: A Mindset Shift

Living gratefully means diving deeper into your way of life, not just your outlook. It’s about shifting your perspective, releasing what no longer serves you, and realizing that to live gratefully is to live a life more aligned with who you want to be and how you want to impact the world around you. 

Does it mean that you’re just grateful for all the goodness in your life? 

Almost—it actually means that you’re grateful for all of the challenging situations that you face, so even in the most traumatic events, even the most painful or harrowing situations that you might face, you’re able to stop and ask yourself, “What’s great about this?” 

While this is no easy feat at first, it is a rewarding one. Reflection and insight are powerful tools in the healing process, and for practicing gratitude. 

To live a grateful life is to live a life centering what’s good despite what’s hard. 

Living gratefully through difficult moments is influential to growth, strengthening resilience and optimism, and maintaining joy even when life is messy. Gratitude isn’t about perfection, but rather, recognition that despite the imperfections, there is still goodness abound, positive growth and better days ahead. 

Traditional gratitude will tell you to “count your blessings.” This might mean physically listing everything you’re thankful for to help you focus on what’s going well. This can feel challenging or pointless at first, but it will position your mind to visualize what you’re grateful for rather than just naming it. 

While this is a fantastic starting point, it doesn’t help you dive deep into gratitude. Acknowledging is just the first step, and visualizing a good follow-up, but to live something and embrace a lifestyle requires action. 

Living gratefully is a deeper practice—it’s more intentional, asks questions, and challenges you. To live gratefully, you must be willing to find meaning inside life’s challenges. After you create your traditional gratitude list, sit with it, and muster up some courage to ask yourself, “What’s great about this?” 

Here’s what living gratefully is not:

• Not bypassing or bottling up pain
• Not denying that you’ve endured hardship or trauma 
• Not forcing positivity or expressing toxic positivity

Living gratefully is an active practice that can help you, especially through times of overwhelm. It’s easy to fall into the trap of acting positive and not living positively or feeling positive. 

Digging beneath the surface of what you’re grateful for to think about the why trains you to slow down, observe, be insightful and thoughtful. 

It’s the ability to look at your current challenges with more of a growth mindset and focus on the things that are currently going well despite everything that might not be. 

It’s okay to feel hurt, and to struggle processing hardships and traumas. Take time to sit in the hurt, to allow yourself to feel deeply and wholly, whether it’s sadness, frustration, uncertainty, disappointment or something else. Take those feelings and begin to shift your perspective on them—what are they trying to teach you?

Sitting with your feelings enhances your own awareness, both internally and externally. You’ll be able to reflect on the context surrounding you, the feelings you harbor, and the capacity within you to grow positively.

Be grateful for the life lessons you discover and the awareness it brings, because you are worthy of feeling peace and happiness. In every situation you’re in, good or bad, you’re never truly left with less. You’re always gaining insight, new strengths and capabilities, and lessening your own likelihood of settling for less than you deserve. 

Gratitude is how we heal, learn and grow. Living gratefully means taking the hurt and asking yourself to reflect on it, to figure out what you need to do to support yourself, and recognizing that it already exists in your life—you just have to let it. 

Here’s what living gratefully is:

• Being specific and intentional
• Thinking deeper
• Processing emotions 

Again, living gratefully is an active way of life. It helps you take action and own the good things, boosting your sense of worth and aptitude for optimism.

The logic in living a grateful life is that it requires you to think deeper and ruminate on what brings you light and keeps you moving forward, cultivating an abundance of gratitude. 

Why the Hardest Seasons Shape Us the Most

Imagine being able to pinpoint and fixate on the good things as easily as you can the bad things. Take a moment to reflect on your own life and your past seasons of trauma, uncertainty or pain. When did you find growth and healing?

You might recognize a universal pattern: strength, resilience, clarity and wisdom are often found after hardships. Reflection happens when you’re able to look back and measure your growth. Now think about the good things that were happening during those periods of hardships or trauma. What did you learn or gain during that time? What are you better at now? What do you still need to work on, and how can you be grateful that you’re acknowledging this as a springboard for continued growth?

Here’s a four-step journal entry with prompt ideas to help you begin to live gratefully and shift your mindset toward cultivating an abundance of gratitude:

• Write about your day: the good, the bad, the ugly.
• Separate the good from the bad—what positives are happening right now?
• Dive deeper and explain why each “good thing” is good!
• What bad things are sticking out to you right now?
• Dive deeper again! For each “bed” thing happening, what is something good that you can take away from the situation, big or small?

Common growth outcomes you might notice when you look back with gratitude are that you now have stronger, better boundaries that you don’t bend at the behest of others. Maybe you feel like your Saturn has returned and are experiencing a deeper sense of self-worth, or feel more aligned in your decision-making, or have greater emotional intelligence and healthy coping mechanisms now. 

Engaging in deeper, more insightful writing about everything—not just the things you feel grateful for—will help you to shift your attitude. It will help you learn and understand how gratitude works in your daily life, and it also might help you release or understand things better. 

When you live gratefully and put gratitude at the forefront of how you choose to live, you’re able to be a more empowered leader for yourself and others. 

Your life design will require gratitude because you know it reflects strength, growth, self-awareness and meaningful living. 

Living gratefully strengthens connections with yourself and others, allowing you to step into the abundance of power you already own. Having gratitude helps you scratch the surface of who you’re meant to be, and living gratefully helps you step into the woman you know you are. 

The GoBundance Women Wisdom Circles are a great way to connect with others about growth, challenges and gain collective insight while feeling supported. Join a membership today to step further into your power, lead and live with gratitude. 

Live life by the gratitude you feel. Put the practice into action. Let it guide you, and allow it to cultivate an abundance of even more gratitude. Your growth, your breath, your presence—everything is a blessing.