Written by David Tamagi, R.Psych. — Registered Psychologist, College of Alberta Psychologists. David specializes in men’s mental health, life transitions, and relationship counselling, using ACT, CBT, and motivational interviewing approaches. View David’s profile >>

What Is a Gratitude Practice?

A gratitude practice is a deliberate, repeated habit of noticing and reflecting on the positive things in your life, with the goal of training your brain to recognize and experience gratitude more often over time.

Gratitude has been a hot topic in psychology for a while now, and for good reason. There is a stack of literature that links gratitude to a multitude of positive outcomes.

Some of these benefits are things that you might expect, like increasing positive outlook, improving symptoms of anxiety, or helping to relieve depression. Logically, if we look at the good things in our lives, we might feel better. However, other benefits that have been found are less predictable. Studies have found the benefits of gratitude include improved immunity, better sleep, and even benefits for chronic pain.

If there was a pill that could do all this, we’d all be taking it. So why are we not all practicing gratitude? One of the drawbacks of this practice comes from an odd combination. Practicing gratitude sounds extremely easy, and… it’s actually not that easy. This mismatch between expectation and reality leaves most who begin this practice discouraged and giving up.

Also, the benefits of gratitude are not felt right away. It takes a long time of work with no reward before we see any lasting benefits. Our neurological reward systems were not designed for this type of practice as they are much more stimulated by immediate feedback. Because of this, it is hard for us to sustain a practice like this when nothing changes in the short term.

Finally, when you’re sad or anxious, gratitude is really hard to feel. Our emotional state can lock us into a certain way of seeing things. When we are distressed, we can be presented with all the good things in our lives, and subjectively, they will not outweigh our worries. These emotional states tend to dampen our ability to feel gratitude in the first place, which can be discouraging. Approaches like CBT can help build the skills to work with these emotional states alongside a gratitude practice.

All that said, here is a guide to a gratitude practice and some helpful tips to get the most out of it:

Step 1: Start a Running Gratitude List

Keep an ongoing list of things you are grateful for. Add to it whenever something new comes up, rather than trying to write a fresh list each time.

Step 2: Review Your List Every Day

Choose a time of day to go over your list, every day. It helps to attach this to something you already do, like brushing your teeth. You might also make a physical list and hang it somewhere prominent as a reminder.

Step 3: Choose a Gratitude Buddy

Find a gratitude buddy with whom you will exchange one thing you’re grateful for every day. Sharing the practice with someone else builds accountability and makes it easier to stick with.

Things to Keep in Mind

This will not work every day. The point of this practice is not to feel gratitude every day — in fact, you almost surely won’t feel deep gratitude every time you go through your list. Our goal here is to give ourselves the chance to feel grateful every day. Some days you might go through your whole list and feel nothing. This is especially true for those working through chronic mental health struggles like anxiety and depression. However, one day, you might feel a hint of gratitude in response to something on your list. This is the opportunity we are open to when we commit to a gratitude practice. When we have more opportunities for gratitude, we may experience it more often. If we can experience it more often, we can begin to turn the tide in our emotional lives toward the positive.

When something on your list elicits gratitude, take the time to take it in. We so often rush past positive experiences as they naturally fade. By taking the time to sit with the gratitude, even for a few extra seconds, we maximize the impact it has on our brain. This can look different for everyone, but basically it involves elaborating on the feeling. For example, if you are grateful for a loved one, take the time to remember acts of caring or sit in the feeling of love for them. Try to extend that experience for as long as you can.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to feel the benefits of gratitude?
Gratitude practice works gradually rather than immediately. Most people don’t feel a noticeable shift right away, since our neurological reward systems respond more strongly to immediate feedback than to a slow practice like this one. Lasting benefits, such as improved mood, sleep, and stress levels, tend to build over weeks or months of consistent practice.

Why is gratitude hard to feel when I’m anxious or depressed?
Anxiety and depression can lock our attention onto worries and negative thoughts, making it harder for positive things to register emotionally, even when we can name them. This doesn’t mean the practice isn’t working — it means the practice is especially important, and especially difficult, during these periods.

Is it normal to feel nothing during a gratitude practice?
Yes. Many days you may go through your gratitude list and feel little or nothing, particularly if you’re managing ongoing mental health challenges. The goal isn’t to force a feeling every time, but to create consistent opportunities for gratitude so that when it does arise, you’re in a position to notice and benefit from it.

Do I need to do this alone, or can I practice gratitude with others?
You can do either, but sharing the practice with a gratitude buddy, someone you exchange daily gratitude messages with, often makes it easier to stay consistent and adds a social, accountability element that a solo list doesn’t provide.

Signs, Causes, and How Therapy Can Help

You say yes when you mean no. You apologise for things that aren’t your fault. You leave conversations wondering if everyone is still happy with you — and feel vaguely anxious until you know they are.

People pleasing can look a lot like generosity. But underneath the constant giving, agreeing, and accommodating, there’s often something else: a fear of disapproval so persistent that your own needs have quietly disappeared from the picture.

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. People pleasing is an incredibly common pattern, and one that therapy can help you understand and change.

What Is People Pleasing?

People pleasing is a pattern of consistently prioritising other people’s needs, emotions, and approval over your own. It goes beyond being kind or cooperative — it means routinely suppressing what you actually want, feel, or need in order to avoid conflict, rejection, or the discomfort of someone being unhappy with you.

Most people pleasers don’t experience themselves as doormats. They experience themselves as considerate, helpful, easy to get along with. The pattern is invisible precisely because it masquerades as virtue.

Signs You Might Be a People Pleaser

Not all of these will apply to everyone, but if several resonate, it’s worth paying attention to:

You find it very hard to say no. Not just occasionally — but as a default. You agree to things you don’t want to do, take on more than you can manage, and spend significant mental energy trying to talk yourself into saying no before eventually saying yes anyway.

You apologise constantly — often for things that aren’t your fault, or for simply existing and taking up space. Saying sorry has become reflexive rather than genuine.

You feel responsible for other people’s emotions. If someone around you is upset, frustrated, or disappointed, your first instinct is to assume it’s about you — and to fix it, regardless of whether you’re actually the cause.

You hide your real opinions. In conversations, you find yourself agreeing with whoever is in front of you, or staying carefully neutral, rather than risking disagreement. You might not even be sure what your real opinions are anymore.

You feel resentful — but don’t say anything. You give and give, and when it goes unnoticed or unreciprocated, the frustration builds quietly. But expressing it feels too risky, so it stays beneath the surface.

You need a lot of reassurance. After decisions, conversations, or interactions, you find yourself checking in — did that go okay? Are they upset with me? Was that the right thing to do?

You feel guilty taking care of yourself. Rest, saying no, or prioritising your own needs triggers a wave of guilt or anxiety. You might cancel something for yourself the moment someone else needs something from you.

You’re exhausted — in a way that rest doesn’t fix. The effort of monitoring everyone else’s emotional state, managing your impact on others, and suppressing your own responses is genuinely draining. Many people pleasers describe a deep fatigue that doesn’t make sense given their circumstances.

Where Does People Pleasing Come From?

People pleasing is rarely a choice. It’s almost always a learned response — often developed early in life as a strategy for staying safe, connected, or loved.

If you grew up in an environment where conflict was unpredictable or dangerous, where approval was conditional, or where the emotional needs of the adults around you took precedence over yours, learning to anticipate and manage other people’s moods was adaptive. It helped you navigate a situation that felt uncertain or unsafe.

The problem is that these strategies outlive their original purpose. What worked in childhood — staying small, staying agreeable, staying attuned to everyone else — can become a prison in adult life.

People pleasing is also strongly linked to:

Anxiety — particularly social anxiety and fear of rejection
Low self-worth — a deep belief that your value depends on what you do for others
Trauma — especially relational or childhood trauma where people-pleasing kept you safe
Attachment patterns — particularly anxious attachment, where connection feels fragile and must be constantly maintained through giving

What People Pleasing Costs You

People pleasing doesn’t feel like a problem until the cost becomes impossible to ignore. Over time, it tends to produce:

Burnout. Constantly giving without reciprocation, and without permission to have your own needs, is exhausting. Many people pleasers reach a point of collapse that surprises even them.

Resentment. Giving from fear rather than genuine desire builds quiet anger — at others for taking, and at yourself for allowing it. That resentment has nowhere to go, which makes it worse.

Loss of identity. When you’ve spent years shaping yourself around other people’s preferences, it can become genuinely hard to know what you actually want, enjoy, or believe.

Inauthentic relationships. Relationships built on performance — on the version of you that never says no, never disagrees, never needs anything — aren’t built on the real you. They can feel lonely even when they look full from the outside.

Anxiety and depression. People pleasing and anxiety often coexist — the constant monitoring and fear of disapproval is exhausting for the nervous system. Depression can follow when the exhaustion of self-suppression becomes chronic.

Can Therapy Help With People Pleasing?

Yes — and it’s one of the areas where therapy tends to be genuinely transformative, because the pattern is so deeply rooted that willpower alone rarely shifts it.

Therapy helps by:

Understanding where it came from. Rather than treating people pleasing as a bad habit to break, therapy helps you understand the function it originally served — and to meet those underlying needs in healthier ways.

Recognising it in real time. Many people pleasers operate on autopilot — the yes is out before they’ve had a chance to check in with themselves. Therapy builds the awareness to notice the pattern as it’s happening.

Building tolerance for discomfort. The fear of disappointing others is real and often intense. Therapy helps you gradually build the capacity to tolerate that discomfort — to say no, to disagree, to take up space — and discover that the relationships worth having can handle it.

Developing self-worth that isn’t contingent on approval. This is the deeper work — rebuilding a sense of your own value that doesn’t depend on what you do for others or how they respond to you.

At Solasta, approaches we commonly use for people pleasing include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which helps identify and shift the thought patterns driving the behaviour, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which addresses the attachment patterns underneath it. For people pleasing rooted in earlier relational trauma, trauma therapy and somatic approaches can also be helpful.

A Note on Kindness

People pleasing isn’t the same as kindness — even though it can look identical from the outside.

Genuine kindness comes from a place of choice. You help because you want to, because you have the capacity, and because it aligns with your values. People pleasing comes from fear — of conflict, of disapproval, of abandonment. The actions may look the same, but the internal experience is completely different.

Learning to stop people pleasing doesn’t make you selfish or unkind. It makes you someone who can actually choose to give, rather than feeling compelled to.

Ready to Talk?

If people pleasing is affecting your relationships, your work, or your sense of self, therapy can help. Our registered psychologists and therapists in Calgary work with people navigating exactly these patterns — in person and online across Alberta.

Book a free consultation call — no commitment required.

Category: General Wellness & Self-Help

The Gratitude Practice Guide for People Who’ve Tried and Given Up