The 7-Day Gratitude Challenge requires no special preparations or costs. All you need to get started are two key things:
The challenge needs to go hand in hand with a gratitude journal where you record your experiences at the end of each day. Ideally, you should keep a physical journal where you record entries in handwriting as this will better imprint the experiences in your mind.
Each night before you go to bed, take a few minutes to jot down how that day's challenge went, any particular things you noticed and how you feel. You must do this each day for the first seven days and the next seven days if you decided to repeat the challenge for another week. As you get the hang of it, it's sufficient to make entries into your journal twice or three times a week after that.
There's an added bonus as well. Research has linked gratitude journaling with lower stress levels, improved mental clarity and better sleep. This should be enough motivation to keep your journal entries top of mind at the end of each day!
When you make the intention to take the 7-Day Challenge, you must make the commitment to follow through consistently. The first week is especially important because you are preparing your brain to rewire itself for gratitude. If you skip days or go through the challenges half-heartedly, your brain will register that gratitude is not important enough for you to make it a habit.
However, this may not be easy for everyone.
Perhaps the one downside to practicing gratitude is that it won't be easy for people who are generally pessimistic and negative in their thinking.
We are all programmed to think negatively more than we do positively, as it is an innate survival instinct from the days when our ancestors had to expect the worst in order to stay alive. However, this can definitely be overcome with consistency and practice,
The bottom line: In order to change, the brain needs to experience gratitude regularly. That's why it's important to follow the challenge through the full seven days and keep gratitude top of mind.
Gratitude builds on itself. The more we experience gratitude, the more the brain changes to make it a mindset. Keeping a gratitude journal and staying consistent will allow you to achieve this by creating a continuous cycle of gratitude in your life.