Coaching practices for Three Good Things the Evidence Based Gratitude Practice Before Bed

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I lie down at night and my brain runs a highlight reel of everything I got wrong today
  • I’ve been doing the gratitude thing but my entries all sound the same
  • I’ve kept this practice up for months but it’s gone on autopilot
  • My days mostly run together as fine-to-bad, and even when something genuinely good happens it slides off me by bedtime
  • My mind defaults to everything that went wrong today

Practices that may help

  1. Three Good Things: The Evidence-Based Gratitude Practice
    In Martin Seligman’s original randomized controlled trial, participants who wrote three good things and their causes each evening for one week reported significantly higher happiness and lower depression at one month and six months — making it one of the most replicated exercises in positive psychology. Effects are genuine but modest; the practice sustains benefits best when kept specific and causal rather than performed as a gratitude list.
  2. Write three good things and their causes each evening
    Before sleep, write three specific good things that happened and — crucially — why each one happened.
    Three Good Things: The Evidence-Based Gratitude Practice
  3. Keep entries specific, not global
    One precise, specific good thing is worth more than five vague ones — train on detail, not volume.
    Three Good Things: The Evidence-Based Gratitude Practice
  4. Rotate to prevent hedonic adaptation
    After 4–6 weeks, introduce variation to prevent the exercise from becoming mechanical.
    Three Good Things: The Evidence-Based Gratitude Practice
  5. Three good things
    Each evening, write three things that went well and why they happened.
    Gratitude Journaling, Done Well
  6. Three good things (what went well)
    Each night, write down three things that went well and why they went well.
    Positive Psychology, Made Practical
  7. Share one good thing with another person
    Tell one person about a good thing that happened — sharing amplifies the positive experience and builds connection.
    Three Good Things: The Evidence-Based Gratitude Practice
  8. Make gratitude specific to fight adaptation
    Specific, concrete gratitude works where generic gratitude quickly adapts out.
    The Hedonic Treadmill, Made Practical
  9. Gratitude for the ordinary
    Deliberately note small, easily-missed goods rather than only the big events.
    Gratitude Journaling, Done Well
  10. Three good things
    Each night, write three things that went well and why — retraining attention toward the positive.
    Optimism Training: Building Realistic, Flexible Optimism

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