It turns out that counting your blessings actually improves the quality of your life. A study of 389 adults found that gratitude was strongly correlated with a measure called Satisfaction with Life (SWL).
The researchers wrote that “grateful people were more extraverted, open, agreeable, conscientious, and less neurotic.” They also observed that “gratitude is increasingly being seen as a trait which is a major aspect of well-being.”
Similarly, a 2007 study concluded that “counting blessings seems to be an effective intervention for well-being enhancement in early adolescents.”
Evidence shows that counting your blessings increases your sense of satisfaction, and this is one of the simplest ways to feel better.
Sure, you could wait to feel good until you solve your problems, or until you shed those extra eight pounds, or until you get promoted, or until you get a raise, or until you get married, or until any number of in-your-dreams things happen.
But I hope you don’t do that. I hope you just adopt a habit of taking a minute or two each day to be grateful for your many blessings.