Last Minute Gratitude Activity

By Becky Squire

Thanksgiving is in a few days and it's a great time to practice gratitude. Have you set aside some time to do that with your family? If not, here's a quick, but powerful lesson you can do to teach your friends or family about gratitude!

Have each person grab a journal, paper, or even their phones. Tell them to write for 1 minute about the heavy things they are carrying. What are their biggest worries, doubts, fears, etc. Make sure to let them know they will be the only ones seeing the paper.

Stop after 1 minute. Now ask them to write for 1 minute about how they feel.

Next, tell everyone to look around the room and find all the things they can that are blue. After they had a few minutes to do so, tell them them close their eyes and list all the things they saw that were yellow. They likely won’t be able to do it. That’s because they had focused so intently on the blue that they didn’t even notice the yellow things.

Take a few minutes to discuss how we find what we are looking for. Even when we feel stressed or sad, we can focus on what we are grateful for.

Next tell everyone that they are going to make a list of 100 things they are grateful for. They might look worried, but tell them you will help them break it down.

Make a list of:

10 things they are grateful for.
10 people they are grateful for.
10 teachers they are grateful for.
10 things about themselves they are grateful for.
10 trials or struggles they are grateful for.
10 people who lived before them they are grateful for.
10 gospel truths they are grateful for.
10 things that happened this week they are grateful for.
10 things about today they are grateful for.
10 things about their family they are grateful for.

Now ask them to write for 1 minute about how they feel.

Take a few minutes to talk about how drastically our emotions can swing depending on what we focus on.

After that discussion, read or watch the last story in President Monson’s talk, “Be of Good Cheer” from April 2009. It starts at minute 11:33 and runs for about 11 minutes.

When we focus on what we are grateful for, our spirits will be lifted and we can then lift others. What are you grateful for today?