Another year begins. No goals. No word. No resolutions.
Only promises.
A promise to do my best and be my best. A promise to honor my mind, body, and spirit. A promise to grow closer to God. A promise to love more. A promise to find, experience, and spread more joy.
For years, I’ve kept a gratitude journal. Sometimes I miss a day, or week, or month, but I have formed a habit of gratitude. Every day my heart is full of gratitude. I have learned to hold gratitude right alongside anger, resentment, depression, anxiety, stress, and all those other challenging feelings and emotions. Being grateful doesn’t take away the hard parts of life, but it does provide hope which presents light on the darkest days.
Gratitude is important, but about a week ago, I transformed my gratitude journal into a joy journal. Rather than writing the things I’m most grateful for, I’ve been recording the things that bring me the most joy. I haven’t abandoned gratitude. I still practice gratitude every day, but it’s ingrained in me now. Being grateful and giving thanks is a habit. Being joyful isn’t.
What I’m finding is recording daily joys is improving my mood and motivating me to be more intentional with my time. (Starting anxiety meds again doesn’t hurt either.)
I challenge you to go find your joy. Write it down. Honor it. Be grateful for it. And, make joy a habit.
Here are just a handful of things that brought me joy today:
- A stranger smiling and waving at me as I drove past him. He was walking in the cold SC weather this morning with a gas station coffee and bag of snacks in tow. We made eye contact as I drove by in my warm car. He smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back.
- Lunch with family to celebrate one of my nephew’s birthdays.
- One last morning walk with my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and niece before going back to the grind tomorrow.
- Learning new things about building a small business with my husband.
- Snuggles from Tony the Piggy.
- “Life Hack” – The bright idea to start using a random name generator to help me make decisions for things like what to have for dinner or what restaurant to eat at.
Cardinal Confidence: A Passion Project 
I love that you renamed your gratitude journal to something that feels more you. They’re all similar, aren’t they? Joy, gratitude, thanksgiving… But sometimes it feels like we don’t do one or the other “right” based on – what, exactly, I don’t know. Probably what we see other people do online with their gratitude journals. But the simple change of naming it a Joy Journal changed your attitude and perspective about it. Aaaand I love that you recognize that a habit doesn’t have to be something you do every day. Habit is a word I’ve reframed in my own life. I call them rhythms more often than not. Kind of depends on the thing. A little bity tweak just for me. But it works and that’s what matters to me.
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