Stop DOING Gratitude - My Gratitude Experience

If you struggle to feel grateful or you didn’t get on with the whole morning gratitude list thing, I wrote this post for you.

Because I was you.

Back in 2018 I spent 6 months doing something that I was told would change my life…

Writing a morning gratitude list each day.

I was going through some dark times so the idea of something that took only 5 minutes that would help me enjoy life more sounded like a no brainer to try.

And so I did.

Each morning I’d sit down, open my journal and write down three things I was grateful for.

Some days it was easy. Other days I’d sit there struggling to write down anything. I could mentally think of things I should feel grateful for, but I didn’t feel grateful for them.

I kept going, because that’s what you do, right? You trust the process, you show up. It’s worked for so many others, surely it will work for me.

Except nothing changed.

If anything, those five minutes started to become an increasing source of frustration and set the opposite tone for the day than I wanted.

I mean, there I was - someone with a roof over my head, food in the fridge, friends messaging me, money in the bank plus so much more - and I couldn’t write just three things I was grateful for?!?

What did that say about me? I started to wonder if I was just fundamentally ungrateful. Or whether there was something wrong with me.

I kept at it though, I didn’t want to be a quitter.

As more time went by I started to notice something. Morning gratitude became just another thing I needed to tick off my to do list - I was just going through the motions.

I started writing down anything. Things other people have said they’re grateful for, things I think I should feel grateful or even just things I had others didn’t.

After around 6 months I just decided to stop doing it. Despite all the benefits I’d read and people singing the praises of this practice - for me at that time, it wasn’t working.

And that’s where I left gratitude - what a relief it was. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that was not the end of my story with gratitude.

Over the following couple of years I would learn and experience some key things that would in time lead me to not only feeling gratitude but also enjoy my life so much more.

You Don’t DO Gratitude, You FEEL It

The very obvious realisation I got from that 2018 gratitude experiment was that I wasn’t FEELING gratitude, I was doing it. And there’s a massive difference between the two.

I’d write down three things I thought I should or could be grateful for. It was like my head said “job done, exercise complete - send me the benefits now please!”

But that’s not gratitude, it’s just a list.

I realised that gratitude is a felt experience - it’s a feeling, not a thought. It lives in your body, not your head.

Which is why I didn’t FEEL more grateful or enjoy life more, because that would’ve required actually feeling. Instead I was just going through the motions.

When You’re In Survival Mode, Gratitude Is Hard To Feel

The next big realisation was when I shared my struggles around gratitude with a coach (John El-Mokadem).

John said something to the effect of… It’s no wonder you struggle to feel grateful Paul, to you it looks like the world is burning down.

That hit me like a ton of bricks - I saw that my external world looked relatively safe, my internal world was full of fear, stress, anxiety, overthinking and endless worry.

I was in full on survival mode. It felt like my brain couldn’t see any good, because it was so used to scanning for problems.

Notice & Appreciate The Extra-Ordinary Moments In Your Life

The final realisation I want to share came when a coach (Karen DiMarco) shared on a call about how so many of us are chasing these big extraordinary moments, but fail to see the daily extra-ordinary moments that happen all the time.

This was another wake up call for me, I was wanting gratitude to feel like these big amazing moments, that life would be great when I have lots of these experiences. What I saw in what Karen shared though was that there are so many moments in daily life that could wow you, if you only slowed down and took a moment to appreciate them.

Another coach (Kirsty Skinner) would later share with me about how most people chase these big exciting firework moments that feel amazing in the moment but quickly fizzle out - but what most of us actually want is to create a deep roaring fire that never goes out.

My Gratitude Experience

There were many more realisations, ideas and experiences that contributed to what I am about to share - they all blended together and in 2020 quite unexpectedly the topic of gratitude became a theme I was exploring…

I was living in Spain and found myself on a couple of occasions spending 3-4 minutes looking at this bright orange flower. Not for any reason. Not as a practice. I wasn’t really conscious I was doing it to start with. I was just absorbed with this thing, I had this warm feeling of just enjoying and appreciating the flower.

As I look back now, it was very out of character just standing on a street not giving a care what people thought. I was just too present to this weird and wonderful creation of life.

That was it. That was the thing I'd been chasing all along.

Not a grand overwhelming wave of gratitude. Just a genuine feeling that was in response to something relatively ordinary. It was only after 3 or 4 times of doing this, that I clocked what was going on - I didn’t try and recreate these moments, but I did say to myself - when they happen let yourself immerse into them as fully as you can for as long as they last.

When I got back to the UK in early 2021 I noticed I was doing the same thing with the daffodils and snowdrops coming out. I hadn't planned it. I wasn't trying to be grateful. I just found myself appreciating them as I went about my day.

I was curious about these and wondered where else in my life might they be happening. Sitting on my  favourite green sofa with a warm cup of tea. Stopping on a dog walk and enjoying facing the sun soaking in its warmth. The connected feeling when a friend messages you.

I didn’t go searching for these experiences, I just noticed when that familiar feeling and experience arose within me.

At some point in 2021 I started writing these experiences down on sticky notes (I love sticky notes by the way!). Quickly I had too many to keep on my desk so put them on the wall in my hallway.

Making a chequered pattern with the blue and green also became one of the things I became grateful for!

In time I realised that as I wrote the experiences down and put them on my wall, if I allowed myself to I could re-experience the feelings - it became another way of bringing more appreciation and gratitude into my life without needing to experience anything new.

As the wall started to grow at times I found myself pausing to look at it - I’d just spend a bit of time reading and reminding myself of all these amazing experiences. This again, would bring me back into feeling some of what I felt in the moment.

As it grew it became a wonderful reminder of just how much I was appreciating life and a living representation of feeling grateful.

Unbeknown to me at the time, I had found my own powerful gratitude practice, one where I actually FELT grateful and started to enjoy life so much more.

It’s something that I’ve consciously returned to a couple times in the following years. My sweet spot has been to commit doing it for between 5-10 days - that seems to be enough to give me what I need and help me reconnect with gratitude, appreciation and enjoying daily life.

In 2025 I decided to share this experience with others, we had over 100 people join the group and I loved seeing other people make their sticky note gratitude walls just as I did.

One of the big realisations from people who joined was how much it was about being present as it was about feeling gratitude (after all, you’re not going to feel much if you’re stuck in the future or past).

And I was once again reminded that the journey of self-discovery is most powerful when you’re not trying to fix yourself, instead following what stands out to you.

If anything I’ve shared stands out or interests you please do use it as part of your own journey of exploring gratitude - you might want to try my approach or use bits of it, totally up to you.

Take care,

Paul

P.S - I’m turning what I experienced here into a workbook that invites others to go on a journey of feeling gratitude, exploring what makes it possible and seeing that they can enjoy life more today. Watch this space.