Having a journal to be thankful can probably be the single most important tool for happiness

I have been doing the experiment of writing thankful thoughts in a notebook every morning once I wake up and sometimes at the end of the day. I started since one month ago, I just did it a few days during the first two weeks, then in the third week I did it almost everyday, and now, in my fourth week, I haven't missed a day and some days I do it both in the morning and night before to sleep.

I just wrote about this experience today because I was able to notice how much difference it makes to do this first thing in the morning once I wake up.

I realized about the power of having thankfulness journal and it just came to my mind with total conviction that: Having a journal to be thankful can probably be the single most important tool for happiness.

It's just incredible, I heard about it many times in different books, especially in "the resilience project: finding happiness through Gratitud, Empathy & Mindfulness" which is a really good book, among other good ones that mention the practice of having a Gratitud / Thankfulness journal.

It's been one month since I started and so far, I can now clearly see how there is an incredible feeling of hope, motivation and happiness in the mornings, which lasts through the day.

It usually takes me probably two minutes, unless I'm feeling like writing more in detail about something.

I'm going to mention the way in which I do it, although I'm sure it can be adjusted to everyone's style.

I open the notebook, select the right page, write the date and start writing thankfulness messages, filling all the spaces of the page until I get to the last part of the page. You can write literally anything, the key is not to stop, even if my mind didn't know what to write, I just continue to write "thank you, thank you, thank you,..." until there is something else to be thankful about. 

Also, I leave the left page free so I can write any additional thoughts that come to my mind. This are normally intentions, activities I would like to accomplish during the day or particular notes about anything. 

This is an example of how my right page could look like, you can write literally anything, the key is not to stop:

"Thanks God (life or anything in which you believe) for this amazing new day, thanks for our good health, thanks for the opportunity of having a new day of life, thanks for my family, please keep them safe and healthy. Thanks for having a place to sleep, thanks for having food to eat, thanks for being able to ride the bicycle today, thanks for my good night of sleep, thanks for having a job, please help me to do a good presentation today. Thanks for the opportunity to live in a place that I enjoy, thanks for... "