What I learned from two whole years of sending weekly gratitude cards, Part 2

As I said in part 1, in 2021, my annual project was clutter. As in getting rid of it. 

And last year and the year before it was gratitude.

Here’s the backstory.

In 2021 I decided to take on a year-long experiment. I decided to de-clutter big-time. 

Did I manage to do it?  Spoiler alert.  You betcha!  You can read about the results of my grand, year-long experiment – how I got rid of three things every day.  

In 2022 I needed a new experiment.

I decided to make and send a gratitude card to a different person every week for a year

It went so well that I decided to continue in 2023.

Read about how I came up with that idea, and the five-step process for how I made it happen here in part one. 

And read about the first five things I learned from my first year of sending weekly gratitude cards.

Here are another five things I learned from my two-year-long experiment:

1. Scarcity

I realized that I really have a scarcity mindset.  I tend to worry a lot about ‘not enough,’ ‘things are going to run out,’ ‘there’s not enough time,” etc.

My gratitude experiment helped me with that.  

Gratitude is in abundant supply if we simply stop to focus on it. (And that in turn has helped me have less of a scarcity mindset.)

In my second year of gratitude, I reached out further than I had before. I expanded my gratitude to include public figures, including people who don’t know me but who I’ve been influenced by their work.  People like Dr. Brene Brown, Dr. Carol Dweck and singer/poet Allison Russell. If you haven’t listened to her song You’re Not Alone, please do yourself a favour, pause and go listen to it.  It brings me to tears every.single.time. The feels are that big.

So much gratitude, far and wide.  No scarcity there.

2. I let go

When I first started I worried about whether folks were actually going to receive my cards and ‘get’ what I was trying to do.

This past year I learned to let go of any expectation.  If folks received the cards, great!  If not, it wasn’t a problem.  I had sent gratitude out into the world. And that was enough.

I let go of expectations.

That’s not to say I wasn’t tickled when I reconnected with folks. In one case, I reconnected with an amazing woman who was the camp cook at Rediscovery, a First Nations traditional camp and the most isolated youth camp in the world, where I volunteered in 1984. 

3. Systems, systems, systems

Probably like you, my life is busy and complicated.  I have a lot going on.  And I live away from my passport country and all of my family, except my partner. 

Given my hectic life, having systems in place REALLY helped me keep to my weekly cards. 

That meant having a clear space to make my art and write, with all of my supplies organized and handy, including stamps, envelopes, water colour paint and paper, paste etc.. A.k.a. sweet systems.

4. Two for one is gold

I started the gratitude project in part because I know gratitude is good for us and because I wanted to have a way to make sure I practiced my water color painting.  That 2:1 (gratitude + painting) made me feel extra good about my accomplishment.

5. Practice NOT being good at something

Notwithstanding point four, the pressure we put on ourselves to achieve, to do more, to always have the right answer can be huge. I took the pressure off by how I framed my project.

I’m not great at water colour painting.  So this was a deliberate choice to practice something I’m not good at.  In other words, to set out to learn more and be gentle with myself along the way.

So what’s the verdict on my second, year-long gratitude experiment? 

It was a success!  It felt great to have said thanks to a lot of people and get specific about why I’m grateful.  I’m grateful for what the process brought me, plus I have a sense of gratitude for having so much to be grateful for, and a sense of calm, peace, and accomplishment for having done it.

I continued to take pictures of all the cards I made and the notes I wrote on them and it’s been fun to look back.

How about you? Would you consider a similar gratitude project?  Let me know by leaving a comment below.

And stay tuned for my new year-long experiment for 2024.  I’ll write about it shortly, in part because you may want to do it as well and also because it will help me be accountable to you dear reader.

Finally, “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth,” said Rumi.

Just as there are hundreds of ways to express gratitude, including and especially to you.

Now go on and learn, laugh, and lead

Learn

• Think of the people in your life that you’re grateful for and why.

Laugh

• Who else am I grateful for?  Why you of course!

Lead

• Tell someone (verbally, via a postcard, a little video clip, etc.) why you’re grateful for them.  I promise you they’ll be tickled pink.

P.S.

It’s Learning and Development Roundtable time!  Find out more about the January 25th Roundtable:  “How to Design a customized learning plan for 2024 that fits you and your team to a T and increases your ROI.”  Or simply sign up straight away.