How to Build a Gratitude Board
What fills your cup?
Though it isn’t always, writing is often a solitary pursuit punctuated by rejection. One way to refuel is to celebrate the wins. Return to them!
Hanging in a guest bedroom in our home is a bulletin board, though you’ll have to take my word for it. It’s overgrown like a moss-covered rock. You can’t even see the ornate seashell-themed tacks I originally splurged on. Those are buried. We’re onto the second and third round of tacks, each cheaper than the last.
The Gratitude Board has become a shrine to every little nice thing people have said about my writing, no matter how trivial or insignificant it might seem from the outside. My threshold for making the Board is low, and why shouldn’t it be?
Every time I enter this spare room— say, to get a pair of pants out of a drawer— and see the board, it’s an instant dopamine hit, a reminder of something I published personally or professionally, whether prose or music, that moved someone enough that they sent an email or a notecard.
It’s why we do what we do.
For those who want to replicate a Gratitude Board for yourselves, here’s a tutorial on how I created mine, really getting into the nitty-gritty!
Let’s move clockwise:
Upper Left
Who’s a good girl, who’s a good girl!
Oh my god, you are absolutely adorable, I am freaking dying inside. I could stare at you LITERALLY all day.
I’m crying, but they’re happy tears.
UPPER RIGHT
I want to eat you! You are so precious, I could gobble you up. You’re a tiny little crouton and you belong in my soup.
Is this baby fever? Good lord, I’m a 57-yr old man, what are these hormones?
If I don’t look away I might die.
LOWER RIGHT
Are we gonna have fun on our walk today? Not just us, Princess, but our clone army! That’s right, I’m gonna create 1,000 copies of you. I could probably fit most of them in my pocket.
I think you know you’re ALL THAT, but… I don’t mind! I’m in love.
I can feel my blood pressure lowering.
Aaahhh
A REVELATION
I’m starting to think it’s not the thank-you notes feeding me dopamine every time I look at my board! 😂