Want to Be Happier? Try Gratitude
When your life is full of changes, gratitude can help you focus on the positive and stay hopeful.
Illustrations by Maggie Stephenson
“You will never be happier than you are grateful.”
Just like this quote from Elder Gary B. Sabin of the Seventy suggests, how happy you are is directly influenced by how grateful you are. It makes sense—when you’re grateful, you’re focusing on positive things instead of negative things.
Still, life doesn’t always go as planned. Unexpected changes might make you more stressed, sad, or frustrated than happy. But when things are hard, gratitude can help you stay hopeful. Try these three ways to bring more gratitude into your life.
1. Look for the Good
Oftentimes, it’s hardest to have gratitude when you feel like you’re lacking something. But what blessings might you be overlooking by focusing on what you don’t have rather than what you do have?
As you search for the good in your life, over time it will become easier to find.
2. Express Gratitude to the Giver
When you count your blessings, don’t forget where they come from.
Thanking Heavenly Father for His gifts—including the gift of His Son—can deepen your love for and faith in Him. President D. Todd Christofferson, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, also explained, “Feeling and expressing gratitude to God … infuses worship with a sense of joyful renewal,” bringing you joy and strength and helping your testimony stay secure.
3. Focus on Heavenly Father’s Plan
Obviously, having gratitude doesn’t mean ignoring the hard things in life or feeling happy all the time. Even Jesus Christ felt and acknowledged pain (see Alma 7:11; Doctrine and Covenants 19:18–19). Sadness is a normal part of mortality.
But no matter what, one thing never changes: Heavenly Father’s plan of mercy. All the sadness and hurt you experience in life will be set right because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement (see Revelation 21:4).
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained: “Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges.”