Learn How to Improve Teacher Happiness with Gratitude Journaling

Find out how to improve teacher happiness with gratitude journaling. Read easy tips and 25 prompts to help kick-start your journaling journey.

Have you wondered how to improve your happiness as a teacher? I know it has been something I’ve thought about many times.

I’d heard about the wonderful health benefits of gratitude journaling, so I was keen to give it a go for myself and see if it could lift my spirits.

But before I share how I boosted my wellbeing with gratitude journaling, I want to explain the phenomena of Gratitude Journaling and its effects to strengthen the mind-body connection and build happiness in your everyday life.

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What is Gratitude Journaling?

You might be asking yourself, “What is gratitude and why should you practice this in your life?”

At its simplest, having gratitude involves thinking about and appreciating the good things that happen to us in our lives.

Many studies have found that gratitude is an essential part of happiness.

Often times, when you’re having a tough time in life, it can be difficult to remember the good things, but there are many benefits gained from appreciating what life has to offer.

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you would have heard about expressing your gratefulness through the written word and this is what’s called Gratitude journaling.

Gratitude journaling involves focusing on all that you are happy or thankful for each day and it’s a way of inducing the sense of gratitude.

This form of journaling can involve making simple lists or thoughts of things you love, appreciate, or are thankful for — basically, all the things you are grateful for in your life.

This focussed thought on the ‘good things’ helps to change the brain and induce positive feelings and happiness.

Gratitude journaling – a way to improve teacher happiness

With this in mind, I was keen to try Gratitude Journaling for myself, because to be honest, my wellbeing was suffering and my happiness had taken a nose-dive.

But, when I had tried journaling in the past, I hadn’t been too successful in keeping this habit going.

Do you remember when you were a kid and journals were all the rage? Well, they were for me anyway.

I vividly recall receiving a Holly Hobby journal (diary) when I was ten – I’m showing my age here 🙂 and I was so keen to write down all of my private thoughts and lock them away with my own key.

Well, do you know how long my journaling lasted? Maybe 2 weeks, if I was lucky – I just couldn’t think of what to write about.

There were so many other times in my life that I’ve tried to journal too. I used to ramble on about my daily events, which was pretty boring and this didn’t stick either.

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Gratitude journaling sounded different somehow.

The surprising benefits of gratitude, that I’d read about, had me curious to try it for myself.

You might be interested to know that the Scientifically-proven benefits include things like:

1. Improved physical health – fewer aches and pains,
2. Improved psychological health
3. Improved sleep
4. Improved self-care esteem
5. Improved mental strength
6. and many more benefits

Studies have found that people partaking in gratitude rated their lives more favourably, experiencing fewer illness symptoms and rating a higher level of gratefulness in their lives compared to others.

I’ve even heard that cultivating gratitude can stave off burnout in teachers. Something that’s definitely resonated with me.

Gaining all of these wonderful benefits would be a bonus.

You know the old, When Harry Met Sally movie line, “I’ll have what’s she’s having.” Ha Ha! That was me. I wanted this too!

I knew I needed to give this a try.

How do you practice Gratitude?

Often when you want to try something new, time can be a thief.

As a teacher, I just didn’t seem to have any time. Or I just felt so overwhelmed with all the ‘over-thinking’ that happens in a teaching day that I felt like my mind would just burst with all of the to-dos that I needed to get done.

How could I add anything new to my already busy schedule?

So, I searched for a quicker option to express my gratitude other than writing long paragraphs each day.

I bet other teachers understand know what I’m talking about. In saying this, I do know that many of us desperately need the benefits of improving our mindsets.

Could fit this into my life in just minutes a day?

You’ll be pleased to know that there are a variety of ways to cultivate Gratitude. Options include:

• Gratitude bullet lists – a simple listing system of writing down dot-points or bullet-points of things you are grateful for and ‘counting your ‘blessings’
• Gratitude journaling – more detailed paragraphing of your thoughts and ideas of your grateful moments in life.
• Gratitude letters or ‘Thank you’ notes
• Taking Photographs of the things you are thankful for
• Or just simply taking a moment to silently acknowledge all that you have (Psychology Today, 2015).

I liked the sound of the Gratitude Listing – the jotting down of quick dot-points was something I knew I could easily do, with not too much effort.

The power of Gratitude Journaling

I started my gratitude lists this last term.

I knew it would be a particularly difficult term – it’s only 10 weeks, but in those weeks, wow! It can be so overwhelming, exhausting and particularly depleting.

I took the plunge, pulling out the journal that I was given for my birthday last year and started with listing 3 bullet points each day. (I used little hearts for each).

Just by taking a little bit of time in my morning routine, that’s all it took… I was hooked!

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The short time each day that focussed on my bountiful blessings started to work wonders on my mindset.

It really does what they say it does.

I experienced some wonderful improvements to my wellbeing, particularly in my happiness levels. The things I noticed the most were:

• More positivity
• My weekly outlook improved
• My stress levels started to lower and I didn’t feel as overwhelmed with work
• I didn’t feel as ‘bogged down’ in the mire of the work-load either
• and I was truly feeling great about my life

Related Article: The Benefits of Fostering a Growth Mindset for Teachers

As I continued to develop this as a healthy habit in my life, work did take over at times. And while my first experience with focussed gratitude listing slowly fizzled out after only just a month, I’m pleased to say that I pushed through to make this morning routine a daily occurrence over the last 4 months.

I realise anything new does take practice and sometimes we do need ideas to prompt our thinking in the gratitude stakes. When you put your mind to it, there are so many things to be thankful for and I know I am truly blessed in my life. I’m sure you are too!

If you’re interested to start gratitude journaling in your own life and experience the boost to your happiness and joy, I’ve included some prompts here to get the habit going. (I found this a helpful way to kick-start my thinking before I was ready to take-over on my own).

Related Article: 10 Habits for Healthy Teachers + Free Printable

25 prompts to start gratitude journaling

1. simple pleasures that you’re grateful for
2. something you are looking forward to
3. something you are grateful for today, you didn’t have a year ago
4. a happy memory
5. a place you have been that you are grateful for
6. something about your body or health you are grateful for
7. what’s something outside you are thankful for?
8. what’s an accomplishment you are grateful for?
9. what possessions make life easier?
10. a friend you are thankful to have in your life
11. basic necessities that make you like what it is
12. someone or something that makes you feel safe
13. books you are thankful for
14. clothing or furniture you are grateful for
15. are you helpful to others?
16. artist, author or musician you are thankful for
17. a friend you are thankful for
18. a teacher or mentor you are grateful for
19. a mistake or failure you are thankful for
20. look around the room and write about all the things you are thankful for
21. skills you have that you are grateful for
22. personality traits you are thankful for
23. a family member you are grateful for
24. something you have accomplished recently
25. a tradition you are thankful for

Enjoying improved teacher happiness with Gratitude Journaling

I hope this has given you some great reasons to start gratitude journaling for yourself to help improve happiness in your life:

• Do it for the positive effects on your wellbeing.
• Do it to help get over tough times at work
• Do it for stress relief!
• Do it help cultivate an awareness and appreciation of all the good things in your life
• and help improve teacher happiness in the hard times

Related Article: Stress Management Tips Every Teacher Needs to Know

What do you do now?

Now you need to give it a go!

1. Get yourself a pretty lined journal or notebook (you know, one of those ones in your drawer you didn’t know what to do with – probably given to you by a student or friend)
2. Start by making three dot points (or more, it’s your choice)
3. Ponder over all that you are grateful for today
4. Jot down your top three things that pop into your mind
5. Keep it going – do it again tomorrow. Begin this before work and it will put you in a fantastic frame of mind before you start all the busyness at school
6. Got a mental blank? – use the Journal prompts to help come up with ideas for the next days

Great work!

You’ve made a terrific start to improve your wellbeing and gain the wonderful benefits of Gratitude Journaling. But remember to keep it going. Make it a healthy habit.

Remember, you are worth it.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Michelle x

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