How to Create Your Own Gratitude Project

Every weekday I wake up about an hour and a half to two hours before I have to start getting ready for work. I haven’t been a religious person for over 30 years, but I recently heard about, Waking up and getting your gift. Meaning, that when you wake up before your alarm goes off, that’s the universe telling you to get up and claim the gift it’s trying to give you.

Since I heard that, I’ve been waking up between 5:00 am and 5:30 am every day for weeks now. The first thing I do is, lie there thinking, Do I really want to wake up?

Then I hear my voice in my head say, “Get up and get your gift.”

I kick the covers off and put my feet flat on the floor and I thank the Universe that I’m alive, that I’m able to enjoy this time for myself and then I think of a few more things that I’m grateful for before I get up and go to the bathroom.

After I do that, I usually go to my library and pick out a random book. It kind of depends on my mood. Today I picked the book, Work with Passion—How to Do What You Love for a Living, by Nancy Anderson.

The book was written in the early 80’s, but there was a quote from G.K. Chesterton’s Autobiography that read, “…The chief idea of my life, I will not say the doctrine I have always taught, but the doctrine I should always have like to teach, that is the idea of taking things with gratitude and not taking things for granted.”

It’s very easy to take things for granted, especially when it’s an everyday occurrence. Whether it’s your job—which you probably really wanted and needed when you applied. To your significant other, which you would have moved mountains for and driven 100 miles to see when you first got together. When these situations become commonplace, we end up taking them for granted.

Take Notice

One way you can combat this is by taking notice and being grateful for the small things. The other day when I woke up to, receive my gift, I remember being grateful for my condo and for not being homeless, which I could have easily been because of my past problems with alcohol.

From there, sitting on my bed in the dark with my feet flat on the ground, I started listing out all the things I was grateful for just in my kitchen. I am grateful for ice and that I have a refrigerator to keep my food cold. I’m grateful for clean water to drink. I’m grateful for my dishwasher and that I have one. I’m grateful for my stove and oven and that they both work. By the time I got to the fact that I have two microwaves in my kitchen, my grateful meter was off the chart and I knew I could be done.

The Gratitude Project

My girlfriend had completed The Gratitude Project in the past. We had talked about it the other day when my daughter and I were visiting her at her house. She had a picture from a coloring book, which she had colored with markers that said, “Have an Attitude of Gratitude.”

I thanked her for putting up with all my shit over the past 8-years. (Tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of us dating.)

I was conscientious that it took a serious incident for me to see it all so clearly now and I texted her today on my way to work to tell her about the quote I had read this morning.

Reading The Signs

When I got to my office this morning, one of the ladies had put this rock on my desk.

I hadn’t told her anything that I’m writing about here. But now that I’m not drinking and I’m taking notice of things, I have realized that the Universe is giving me little signs that I’m heading down the right path.

So the next time you wake up before your alarm, remember, to wake up and receive your gift from the Universe. You never know, it could be the winning Power Ball numbers. (Believe it or not, many Power Ball winners received their numbers in a dream or believe they manifested it.) Don’t miss your chance tomorrow.