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A simple practice that changes how you show up
November. Hectic, yet It’s that time of year when people naturally come together for shared meals. It can be a time when we slow down and reflect on what really matters. For busy leaders, who don’t usually stop, it can be a good time to embrace a quick simple practice with significant business impact: gratitude journaling.
It may sound a bit personal or make you feel vulnerable or weird at first, but gratitude journaling is becoming increasingly common in leadership coaching, habit management programs, and executive development. Research shows it helps leaders and professionals manage stress better and build stronger relationships, as well as make clearer decisions, and builds emotional intelligence (that’s a good thing). It only takes a couple of minutes a day and is one of the easiest micro-habits to implement. Its benefits add up sooner than you think.
What Is Gratitude Journaling & Why It Matters for Leaders
Let’s start with the basics: what even is gratitude journaling?
It’s a short, daily reflection practice where you write down a few things that went well, what or who you appreciate, or who supported what. It doesn’t require long entries or emotional depth. What matters most is consistency.
For leaders, gratitude journaling is basically a cognitive tool. It disrupts the autopilot thinking common in high-pressure roles and replaces it with a moment of clarity. Taking these moments makes it easier to then spot those opportunities, contributions, and progress that usually become invisible when you’re busy.
It makes all the difference in strategy. Leaders who pause to reflect are less impulsive and get a clearer sense of what matters and so make better decisions. So before the next meeting, difficult conversation or big decision you’re more grounded instead of just freestyling based on immediate circumstance. It helps knock recency bias on the head too.
How Gratitude Journaling Improves Leadership Performance
Professionals say that taking a few minutes to be mindful and grateful helps them, among other things:
- Regulate Stress: stepping back puts things into perspective and re-dimensions threats.
- Collaborate with teams: recognizing contributions makes you more empathetic. Acknowledging contributions makes people feel valued and more engaged. And rightly so.
- Think clearly: reflecting for a moment reduces the fog so you can make better decisions and consider different perspectives
- Be resilient: slowing down and recognizing gains makes you adaptable and confident and ready to face the next challenge.
You may start noticing the difference in small ways: you might listen a bit better, respond better, or see your team’s efforts better. Gratitude journaling is a good habit and a tool that genuinely help you lead-better.
How Leaders Build a Journaling Habit That Sticks
Many leaders struggle with habit building because their schedules are super demanding and quite unpredictable. The good news is that gratitude journaling is one of the simplest habits to adopt. Try these habit management principles that help make the practice sustainable:
- Start extremely small: One sentence is enough. Three sentences are ideal. You can always right more (or less) next time.
- Pair it with an existing routine (habit stacking): For example: before checking linkedin at breakfast, after your after lunch coffee, before you close your laptop for the night
- Reduce friction: Keep your notebook visible or use a short digital note. The easier it is to start, the more likely you’ll do it.
- Focus on consistency, not depth: You don’t need profound insights every day. The cumulative effect matters more than the content.
Starting with a low commitment task still gives you a mini coaching check-in before closing out the day. Many business and leadership coaches use it as a method to make professionals recognize patterns, reactions and strengths.
How to Start Gratitude Journaling
Its quite easy to get started with gratitude journaling. Just start with this one-minute structure and build out from there:
- What went well today?
- Who supported me or contributed today?
- What progress did I make?
- What challenge or lesson am I grateful for?
You don’t need to write a paragraph: a couple of lines each are enough to shift your mindset. Over time, the practice will become a grounding ritual that supports your daily performance. And who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself writing a whole memoir without noticing.
Leadership is a Daily Practice
Modern leadership asks a lot: staying calm, listening well, building trust, and supporting people through change. Most leaders are so tuned to getting things done and making decisions that they rarely get or take a moment to pause. Gratitude journaling gives you that moment. It helps you slow down just enough to see your team and yourself with a bit more kindness and to choose your responses instead of rushing through them.
You can feel the difference almost immediately. Meetings feel a little lighter, conversations feel less tense and you bring a steadier energy into the room. And when you show up that way, your team feels it too. People open up more easily, collaboration feels more natural and the whole group starts moving with a bit more ease. A habit this small may not look like much from the outside, but it can quietly make you a better leader and, over time, help your team and your whole organization work better together.
At Maka Language Consulting we help leaders and professionals strengthen these kinds of skills through coaching, communication training and practical approaches to habit management. As this season invites all of us to slow down and appreciate what we have, it may also be the perfect moment to start a practice that keeps gratitude alive long after the holiday is over.