I really don’t say it enough: I LOVE my life. I’m so grateful for it and the people in it that most days I can barely find the words to express it. I have grateful thoughts about the people I’m closest with ALL the time, but when I voice them in the busyness of rush, they feel so empty and contrived that sometimes I wonder if it’s best not to say them at all. Isn’t that terrible?

I’ve thought about this a lot and considered that maybe I can never fully express what I’m feeling in the moment and worry the extent of my gratitude won’t come across. Maybe I don’t feel the influence of my thanks running through my life in a way that substantially changes me. Or maybe it’s because I don’t have a practice around gratitude.

This last thought stuck with me. A few weeks later, the girls birthdays came as they do every year, one right after the other just before the holidays, and I found myself with a mile-long list of thank you notes to write and a million more on the horizon with Christmas approaching. I was devastated to find myself so intimidated.

Sighing, I pulled out my box of thank you notes and started arranging the beautiful stationary I’d bought and never used, and fully written thank you notes I’d never found time to address and send. And then I found a thank you note I’d written to myself, for finishing my first book. Tears came to my eyes as I read, and when I flipped it over to finish reading the message (I used to write LONG thank you notes, even to myself I guess) I found a sticky note on the back of the card that read:

Alix – what if you wrote a thank you note to yourself everyday and tucked it away? It would help you in the moment and it would serve as a reminder in the future of what made you happy.

Wow. That’s when it occurred to me: Why not put this box somewhere I can see it? Why not take five minutes at the start of each day to write at least one thank you note to one person and see where it gets me? What if it changes something?

So that’s what I did.

I keep two running lists–one in the box and one on my phone for when I’m on the go–of people I want to thank. Everyone from friends and family, PTA volunteers, doctors, other service providers and local business owners. I add to the lists whenever I’m moved to, and every morning I pull out the box, set a timer for ten minutes, light a candle, and write a thank you note. Sometimes I only finish one note, but many mornings I get to two or three, and by the time a week has passed I’ve written at least ten thank yous. And still, my list grows.

It’s an incredible feeling to put them in the mailbox each morning and even more so to receive thanks for my thanks. It’s influence is a ripple effect, one that I can now absolutely feel running through my life. It’s made me realize that sometimes the more time I spend thinking about things, the more anxiety I have around doing them. But the more I ACT on things I’m constantly thinking about, the more joy they bring.