Keep a gratitude journal for a month.

“On October first, I went about my usual day. I got up, made breakfast, worked a bit, walked the dog, worked some more, went to the gym, went to the grocery store, showered, worked some more, made dinner, went to bed. Normally, I'd just go through the motions, not really taking in each moment, but because I knew I'd sit down at the end of the day and write my one line of gratitude, I had this very subtle undercurrent of awareness going on in the back of my mind. Without focusing on it too hard, I was conscious that I was looking for a good moment in my day to write about.”

“By week two of the month-long experiment, I couldn't just write one good thing that happened. I started writing two and then even three, because so many great moments were happening throughout my day. As I looked for more great moments, more and more great moments appeared in my day. And, I guess now's the time to tell you that while I consider them great moments, they might not be considered all that great by anyone else. Some moments that made the cut: The joy I felt this morning when I walked into the living room this morning and saw Buckles fast asleep on his bed. The sunset - oranges, yellows, pinks - against the pale blue sky as I drove to the gym tonight. How pretty the natural light is when it pours through the windows of my office around 10am. How delicious the coffee is that I brought back from Kenya.”

“So, I set out to journal for 30 days straight about what I was grateful for. Now, I’m not saying this was easy. In fact, it was really damn hard. I forgot for an entire week to write, after writing consistently for three days. The one thing I can rely on every day is that I’ll pop my birth control pill, so I had to sync up my “grateful for” time with trying not to have a baby. And guess what! I wrote down one day that I was grateful for that! Some days, I would sit down to write and come up with nothing—and I felt like an ungrateful tool bag. Other days, I would pour my heart out on the page. Somehow, I felt like a kid again, scribbling down nothing and everything.”