Week 35 was the week of gratitude II, but I’m not entirely sure that I ever did Gratitude I! If I have done it already, I didn’t write about it which seems odd. Maybe I’ll pick it out of the jar in coming weeks, let’s just hope that I didn’t have to do 1 before 2, hey?!
For this task, there were a few steps that I had to follow, which were:
- Write a list of people who have had a positive impact on your life.
- Pick one of them to write a letter to.
- Write a letter being specific and clear as to why you’re grateful for the person.
- Arrange to meet the person later this week – if not in person then via a call.
- Read your letter to them, take your time and discuss it with them afterwards.
- After your talk, reflect on how writing the letter, reading the letter and their reaction made you feel.
The idea behind this task is that apparently identifying the people we are most grateful for and explaining to them why we are grateful is a powerful way to increase our own happiness.
Now, I’m not going to lie, I completed steps 1 and 2 of this task but I never made it past those. It was just a bit of a busy week and I never got further with the task, you know how it is. However, I wanted to share this anyway because I think that, in essence, it’s quite a nice task and I thought some people might be interested in doing it fully. I do think it’s a little awkward to have to meet with the person and read the letter to them, but I wonder whether that’s just my own attitude and there are people out there who would feel comfortable doing so? Would you?
Either way, I wanted to share in case it’s of interest to anybody reading. Some of the times I’ve felt most humbled and touched is when somebody out of the blue pays me a compliment or tells me how much they think of me, that sort of thing, so I can imagine that this task would give the capacity to make somebody’s day or even week. Try it out, and if you’re brave enough – go the whole hog and do steps 4, 5 and 6!
I’d love to hear how you get on!
See you next week!
Reflect and Introspect 