When Responsibility is Not a Good Thing

I am a very responsible person. In fact, I’m so responsible that I can easily lose sight of my goal and end up focusing on the process instead.

Let me explain.

I have kept a gratitude journal for two or three years now. I’ve gone through various formats, all with the intent to get better at keeping a gratitude journal.

If anyone ever asked, “Who in this audience keeps a gratitude journal?” I could proudly raise my hand high. ✋(Can you see where I was already getting off track?).

Somewhere along the way, this exercise began to feel more of a burden than a blessing.

I had lost sight of the reason I was daily writing down what I was thankful for.

Where had I gone wrong?

Thomas S. Monson said,

“To express gratitude is gracious and honorable,
to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but
to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven.”

* I was expressing gratitude. That was a good thing. Right? Expressing gratitude is gracious and honorable.

* I was enacting gratitude by trying to incorporate it into my life. That is generous and noble.

* But was I living with gratitude in my heart?

I had overlooked that part.

Writing in my journal had become my goal. Something I could check off my list and feel good about because I was keeping a commitment to myself. It was not necessarily changing me… yet.

To change me, I needed to feel gratitude in my heart!

The real purpose of keeping a gratitude journal was to help me rise to living in a state of gratitude.

I can think about being thankful all I want, but until I feel the emotion of gratitude, it cannot truly change my life.

When thankfulness is felt on an emotional level, gratitude then becomes a part of us and ripples out into the way we live and the way we influence others.

During this season of thankfulness, I encourage you to allow yourself to feel gratitude in your heart.

With love,