The Importance of Gratitude

As we head into the holiday season, with Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, it’s a natural time to reflect on what we’re grateful for. But gratitude is more than just listing what we’re thankful for around the dinner table. It can be a daily practice that changes how we approach our lives, our challenges, and have a positive impact on sport performance.

I’ve been asked before how I stay so positive. After thinking about it, I believe a big part comes down to practicing gratitude and trying to maintain a grateful outlook in my day-to-day life. That doesn’t mean I’m always positive or that I think life is sunshine and rainbows. Life is hard, things don’t always go as planned, and there are plenty of days when it’s difficult to find the good. I still have negative thoughts, get frustrated, and struggle with hard things. The difference is that I’ve learned to be more intentional about where I direct my attention. For me, one of the biggest shifts started in high school.

A One-Minute Habit That Changed My Perspective

During my junior year of high school, a friend’s mom gave me a small journal and suggested that I write down three things I was grateful for every day. I decided to give it a try and put the journal on my bedside table so I would remember to do it before going to sleep each night.

At first, I found myself thinking through my entire day, trying to come up with three big things to be grateful for. I would search for the exciting moments, accomplishments, or things that made the day particularly special. But after a couple of weeks, I started noticing the little things, and eventually, I had a hard time narrowing my list down to just three. I was grateful for my comfy bed, getting to talk to my grandmother on the phone, having clothes I liked wearing, or enjoying a delicious dinner my mom had cooked. I started noticing the sun shining, a funny conversation with a friend, or a moment when I felt particularly happy. Sometimes on “bad days”, I was simply grateful to wake up that day and have food to eat.

What started as a one-minute habit before bed slowly changed how I experienced my days. Instead of only recognizing the good things when something exciting happened, I began noticing them as they were happening. I wasn’t necessarily having better days. I was getting better at recognizing the good in the days I already had.

Bringing Gratitude Into Rowing

While this habit helped me appreciate the little things in everyday life, I began to notice how much it could affect my mindset as an athlete, too. There is something special about returning to rowing after a break, a difficult winter season, or an injury. I’ve had days when I finally get back on the water and have an incredible session simply because I’m so grateful to be rowing again. Every stroke feels exciting, and I’m reminded of how lucky I am to do something I love. But as the days and weeks go by, that excitement can start to fade.  I started asking myself: How can I bring that same excitement and appreciation to the days when I’m tired, the weather is terrible, or I’m nervous about a difficult practice?

I realized I could approach those days in the same way I approached my gratitude journal. I just needed to take 30 seconds to think about a few things I was grateful for. Maybe I’m grateful that I get to do the workout in a team boat, for my warm socks, or that I’m healthy enough to train. None of these things makes a cold morning or a hard workout any easier physically. But they can change how I approach it mentally.

Changing the Way We Approach Hard Things

Gratitude has also helped me change the way I think about difficult workouts. We’ve all been there. You’re sitting on the erg before a hard piece, looking at the monitor, and your mind is already telling you how miserable the next 20 minutes are going to be. You start thinking about how much it’s going to hurt, how tired you are, and how badly you want to be done before you’ve even taken the first stroke. I still have those thoughts. Practicing gratitude doesn’t mean they disappear. But it has helped me recognize that I have a choice in how I respond to them.

Instead of thinking, “This is going to be hard and terrible,” I can try to reframe it as, “This is going to be hard, and it’s an opportunity to see how fast I can go today and what I’m capable of.”

As I mentioned in the earlier blog post about mental skills, this doesn’t mean we need to pretend that hard things are easy or that every experience is a good one. There are real disappointments, frustrating training sessions, injuries, and setbacks in sports. We don’t have to be grateful for every difficult thing that happens to us. Instead, we can look for the things that help us move forward, even when things aren’t going the way we hoped. 

Why Gratitude Matters for Athletes

The benefits of gratitude extend beyond simply feeling happier. Research on gratitude suggests that practicing it regularly can support psychological well-being, help people cope with stress, and improve how they relate to others. For athletes, those benefits can be especially valuable. 

It’s easy to become so focused on what we want to accomplish that we forget to appreciate where we are right now. We focus on the next personal best, the next race, the next selection, or the next training block. We compare ourselves to other athletes and become frustrated when progress doesn’t happen as quickly as we want.

Gratitude can help bring us back to the present. It can remind us to appreciate the teammates who make hard practices more enjoyable, the coaches who help us improve, the opportunity to compete, and the simple privilege of getting to do something we care about.

It can also help us maintain perspective when things don’t go as planned. Our performance matters, and it’s good to care deeply about our goals. But our worth as athletes and people is about more than a result or a time on the monitor. The more we learn to appreciate the process, the people around us, and the opportunities we have, the more we can find meaning in the journey, not just the outcome.

The Good News: Gratitude Is a Skill You Can Train

One of the things I love most about gratitude is that you don’t have to be a naturally positive person to practice it. Just like rowing, gratitude takes repetition. The more consistently you practice noticing the good, the more naturally you will notice it. 

You don’t need a fancy journal or a complicated routine. You don’t even need to spend more than a minute doing it. Here are a few simple ways to start:

1. Write down three things you're grateful for each night.

2. Take 30 seconds before a hard workout.

3. Look for the little things throughout your day.

4. Use gratitude when you’re feeling stressed or frustrated.

As we head into the holiday season, I encourage you to give gratitude a try. Whether you’re an athlete working toward a big goal, a student navigating a busy semester, or someone simply trying to make it through a challenging season of life, taking a moment to recognize the good can make a difference. Start small, keep showing up, and see what changes.

Happy November, and Happy Thanksgiving from The Crew Stop!