How College Freshmen Can Practice Gratitude
The college grind may be starting to get to you. You just want the semester to be over and soon. Unfortunately you still have a good portion of the school year left. How can you keep on going?
The secret is really not that much of a secret: gratitude. You might be thinking, “wait, it’s not Thanksgiving,” but gratitude isn’t just a 4th-Thursday-of-every-November thing. Being grateful is a practice that can literally transform your semester.
So, how can you be grateful? First and foremost you need to understand that gratitude is not a disposition with which people are merely born. It is a way of thinking that must be constantly practiced, and it requires that you refuse to think negatively and choose to practice gratitude. Using these four habits, you can do more than merely survive until the end of the semester. You can thrive.
1. Purpose to think positively.
At this point in the semester, many college students feel extremely “done.” Coming off of spring break, they start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They long for the days they can sleep sans alarm clock. They are weary of the constant hustle to complete homework, prepare for presentations, and fine-tune projects.
You probably can more than relate to these feelings. You’ve only been in college for months, but you wish this was your senior year already. Thinking critically or negatively is an easy downfall. You’re less naive and excited about college life than you were at the beginning of your freshman year, and you’re more weary of the busyness of your hectic schedule.
Keeping a positive perspective at this point may seem impossible, but it isn’t. You can still think positively. You don’t have to be a complainer. You can choose to practice gratitude by thinking positively about school and people.
Purpose to think positively about people. If you’ve experience some rejection and disappointment socially, you can easily become a pessimist about people. Refuse to think negatively about peers, family members, roommates, teachers, and yourself.
First, think positively about your peers. You inevitably have or will have to interact with frustrating, demanding, or manipulative peers. Whether they mooch off your notes, take credit for your ideas, or constantly waste valuable class time with questions that do not apply to the whole class, these types of peers can easily jade your view of all peers.
Don’t allow the few outspoken and sometimes annoying voices to shape your perspective of every peer. Instead choose to be positive, noticing the good qualities in people before the bad. Be careful not to allow others’ opinions of people become your perspective. Allow each person to build his or her own reputation.
Second, think positively about your family. If you live far from home, you probably do not have time to go home more than a few times or less each semester. You can easily become frustrated with your family over long distance. Whether family members communicate too much or too little, you wish they would be more considerate.
Don’t forget that your constantly crammed schedule is not “real life” (aka like life outside of college). Back at home, your family members are regularly changing. While their schedules are not the same kind of busy, your family’s timetable is different than yours.
Third, think positively about your roommate(s). You’ve become comfortable (maybe too comfortable) with your roommates at this point. Depending on the kind of roommate(s) you have, you may be dreading parting ways or truly counting down the days until you get to part ways. Bad experiences with your roommate may cause you to view everything he or she does and says as negative.
Don’t get tunnel vision. In the months left in school, try to remember and take notice of the good things your roommate does and says. Give your roommate opportunities to do the right thing. Continue to communicate early and often, and try to place your focus on being a good roommate.
Fourth, think positively about your professors. You probably feel one of three ways about your professors: you enjoy them, you’re indifferent, or you dislike them. If you dislike your teachers, you may be tempted to interpret their every action as negative. You may think your teachers are unfair, play favorites, or are unpredictably demanding.
Don’t allow a few bad experiences with your professors to determine how you think about them. Your professors are not perfect people (**gasp**). They have as many, if not more, difficult situations occurring in their own lives. Try to be as understanding of them as you want them to be of you.
Fifth, think positively about yourself. Some college freshmen are far too easy on themselves, constantly blaming others or making excuses for their consistently poor choices. However, other college freshmen are far too hard on themselves. If you tend to be a perfectionist and are more of a Type A personality, this may be you.
Don’t continually tear yourself down or beat yourself up. When you make small mistakes, reflect, correct, apologize (when necessary), and move on. Don’t stay stuck! When you earn a B instead of the A for which you were hoping, use that B for motivation, not grounds for giving up. You’re not perfect, so don’t expect your grades to be flawless either.
Purpose to think positively about school. You might be tempted to give up or stop caring entirely about school. You might be doubting your ability or disappointed with how poorly you’ve done compared to high school. Refuse to think negatively about your grades, assignments, and performances.
First, think positively about your grades. Even if you were extremely well-prepared for the difficulty of college classes, you probably struggled with balancing all your responsibilities and making good grades. Your study habits may not have been as good as you thought they were, but that doesn’t mean you’re a failure as a student.
Don’t believe that a few bad grades have doomed your GPA. You can improve your grades in the rest of this semester and in the school years to come. While you may feel demoralized, earning a few bad grades can actually be the best thing to happen to you. These poor grades remind you that you haven’t “arrived.” You’re still learning and developing, and you just need to keep on keeping on.
Second, think positively about your assignments. You are weary. You’ve been pushing hard for months now. Unfortunately, the second half of the semester is even more busy than the first half. While you want to be out from under the constant pressure of assignments, you’re not and won’t be for a while still.
Don’t give up. Though the pressure may be intense and overwhelming at times, now is not the time to throw in the towel. Remember this busy season will not last forever. You will soon be busy with other things, like working a summer job. These assignments are developing skills you will use in your future career, so keep your eye on the prize. You can do this!
Third, think positively about your performances. Whether you’re a fine arts major or not, you will have to “perform” at some point. You may have to give a speech, give a presentation, audition for play, or perform a piece of music. As someone who has performed more times than I can count, I know how easily someone can head into or come out of a performance thinking negatively. Refuse to allow yourself to “go there.”
Don’t approach performances or presentations with a negative mentality. You’re expecting the worst to happen. Positive thinking can do wonders in performance scenarios. While you shouldn’t expect to be perfect, do expect yourself to do your best. And remember, every less than perfect performance provides you with opportunities to learn and grow.
2. Make a mental list.
Gratitude is not a state of being but rather an intentional and practiced mindset. Like anything else, it takes work—lots and lots of work. If you’re feeling ungrateful, you’re probably making a mental list of things you dislike without even being aware of it.
Does this kind of thinking sound familiar to you? I’m so tired. I wish I could sleep in as long as my roommate each morning. Why did I register for this 8 am class? I hate mornings. I have so much to do today. Why can’t summer come more quickly? Also, what am I going to do this summer? Why didn’t I start applying to jobs and internships earlier? I should’ve been more on top of things!
You can probably imagine how this constant barrage of negative thinking could affect someone. This person is likely to feel extremely unmotivated, apathetic, and even hopeless. Changing this bad habit will take work, but it can literally transform your college experience.
Replace this bad habit of negative list-making by making mental lists of the positive little things in your life. After an arduous semester, all of the negative little things can add up quickly. Your roommate’s mess, your teacher’s grading style, your noisy neighbors, etc.—each of these little things increasingly frustrate you. How can you stop getting angry? Practice gratitude, starting with the little things.
Practically this thinking is pretty simple. Wow! The sunrise is beautiful this morning, and I slept soundly last night. Because my roommate was quieter this morning, I actually slept until my alarm went off. Maybe that was due to being able to exercise for 30 minutes yesterday. I really can get breakfast and make it to class on time today, and I’m actually prepared for the quiz today. I’m glad I can get an early start on my homework for tomorrow this afternoon.
Do you see how different this is than the thinking used before? Instead of focusing on the things you cannot stand, you are flipping your perspective to positive thoughts. This thinking takes practice and will probably feel awkward at first, but I promise you it works and you will soon find you take more notice of the good than the bad.
Replace the bad habit of negative list-making by making mental lists of the positive big things. This is the more difficult task, because what is good to somebody else may not seem that good to you. However, if you step back and consider your life from someone else’s perspective, you will soon see how many big things for which you have to be grateful.
When you compare yourself to others, you’re probably more likely to compare yourself to someone much better off than you. You know the type—the straight-A student with model-looks who is also free to travel around the world. You are probably less likely to compare yourself to those much less fortunate. Many young adults in the U.S. cannot afford college or can barely afford community college. Many young adults struggle so much with school that college is not even a feasible option. Many young adults have learning disabilities, social disorders, or family struggles that make it impossible for them to have the college experience.
Don’t forget that you are extremely fortunate. You have the resources and abilities to attend a college or university that helps you develop professional skills. You are healthy enough to live away from home. You have so many positive big things in your life to list!
3. Pause during the day.
Since gratitude is an intentional mindset, you have to purpose to practice it. Sometimes people have this fanciful idea that some people are just born happy or grateful. While that may be true in a general sense, those people are usually just better about practicing gratitude throughout each day.
Like a professional athlete or a musician, gratitude requires you to set aside daily time to practice. College is a busy time of life, but you probably don’t realize there are little moments all throughout your day where you can take time to practice gratitude. Take advantage of these moments!
Evaluate what time of day you are most alert and set aside time to practice this thinking. Typically there are three specific times that work for most people. First, try pausing each morning. Literally from the moment you wake up, list 5 things for which you are grateful. They can be big or small things, but in either case don’t allow yourself to do anything else until you complete the task.
This task may look for different people. Daily mental list-making may work well for you. For someone else, writing in a journal may be better. For others, sketching a picture or creating a visualization works better. The point is to form the habit and make it your own.
Second, try pausing in between classes. When you consider how much time you have in between your classes each day, you can easily see how you can use the few minutes in between classes to pause and practice gratitude.
While talking aloud will probably look crazy, you can jot down a note or sit there and mentally list 5-10 things for which you are thankful. Even if you already made a list of things in the morning, you can choose to think on those things in these little moments.
A very practical way that I try to do this is by using my phone’s lock screen. I take or use a picture I like and add text to it. You can simply do this by using and saving Instagram stories to your camera roll. Having my background set on something I want to focus my mind on helps me to remember that thought throughout the day.
Third, try pausing at the end of the day. If you are a night person, this may be the best point of the day for you to practice gratitude. On top of being a good way to practice gratitude, sometimes journaling your day helps process everything you’ve experienced throughout your day.
Practicing gratitude at the end of the day also helps you end your day on a high note. Instead of thinking over all of your mistakes or dreading the day to come, you can focus your thoughts on the positive little and big things for which you have to be grateful.
4. Maintain an optimistic perspective.
Whether you consider yourself an optimist or not, maintaining an optimistic perspective is often the key to practicing gratitude. If you allow yourself to focus on your failures, disappointments, or fears, you will cripple yourself.
In other words, you may be your own worst enemy. This is often true of me. I can easily get bogged down by worry, shortcomings, etc. I have to choose to focus on the good. One way to do this is by thinking what you get to do, rather than what you have to do.
Try to reframe your thinking, recognizing the privileges and opportunities you have been given. You get to do so many things that many other people would love to do. You get three amazing opportunities: continued education, professional development, and the college experience.
First, you get to continue your education. While complaining about the expense and difficulty of college may seem like your right, remember that many people would absolutely love to be able to continue their education but cannot.
The opportunity to continue learning past high school is special. In other words, it is not your right. You get to keep learning. You are exposed to different thinking that challenges you personally and develops higher-level thinking. What an amazing privilege?
Second, you get to gain professional experience. Most colleges provide hands on experience that gives you a preview of your career to come. This test-drive experience is invaluable! The professional skills you are developing position you to succeed.
Many people have to claim the first job that comes their way, due to family and/or financial pressures. You, however, are able to take years to craft professional skills. How incredible?
Third, you get to have the college experience. Sometimes in the U.S., high school graduates tend to think that college is the only next step. While college is not necessary for every career, the opportunity to go to college and have the college experience is invaluable.
College can transform insecure and unskilled people into successful and competent adults. Being able to test out the independence of adulthood in a relatively safe environment like college is a privilege. Don’t take this time of life for granted!
Thinking gratefully takes practice. This skill doesn’t develop overnight, but it can be developed by choosing to form these 4 good habits. Refuse to focus on the negative and instead practice gratitude by daily. You will truly be surprised how much it can transform your mindset.
