Lately I’ve found it hard to fall asleep.* I’m a news junkie and, like any junkie, I have an urge to prioritize my fixation over my health. Anyway, I was encouraged by a piece I read to try a gratitude practice instead of late night news scrolling. And, like yoga, meditation and a bunch of things that work for other people, I got absolutely nowhere. “Name three things you’re grateful for” is both too easy (my kids, my partner, my home) and too hard (I have four kids, not three, and actually so many things I should be grateful for, how can I leave anything or anyone out ever??).
But I’m stubborn, and tired and then I read Anya Kamanetz’s substack about this. She gave examples of the gratitude texts she trades daily with her dad. These are beautiful and funny and odd, but one thing about each? They’re specific. Neither she nor her dad are trying to encompass all their blessings in any way. So I got specific.
I’m grateful for the angle of the window over my kitchen sink that showed me the sunrise. For the way my 18 year old son gave his little brother a ride to play practice when he asked – even though I wasn’t even home to encourage him to say yes. For how the beach ball socks I’m wearing look poking out of my rain boots.
Specificity is not only a useful tool for gratitude. The more specific you can be, the more successful you’ll be in any shift you attempt.
Trying to set better boundaries? Be as specific as you can be about what your priorities are and what you need to protect those priorities.
Want to achieve a goal? Be incredibly specific about what your goal is, and what the first goal is on the road to that bigger goal.
Need more or better work from your team? Be incredibly clear about your expectations and also about what you will and what you will not do to help them get there.
Want to improve a relationship? Name exactly what that looks like to you – what action or behavior would be an improvement – and then communicate that.
Resolutions, goals, hopes and dreams are all much less likely to happen when they are vague or general. Success requires specificity.
What are you working on? And how specific can you be?
All my best,
Dr. G
*If this is a chronic issue for you without good solutions, you may want to check out my friend Yana’s resources (and no, she didn’t ask me to share this). You’ll be able to tell just from the url why I think she might be on to something
