Practice gratitude for the full arc, not just the pleasant parts
Express gratitude not only for gifts and good fortune but for the difficulties that shaped you.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Express gratitude not only for gifts and good fortune but for the difficulties that shaped you.
- Why it works: Standard gratitude practice targets positive events, which runs the risk of selective attention — appreciating the upswings while still resenting the downswings. Amor fati extends gratitude to the whole: the failures, the rejections, the hard seasons. This is not gratitude for suffering itself but for what the suffering was part of — a life and self you would not trade. The mechanism is meaning-making through ownership of the whole arc.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Including only the difficulties that have clear, resolved lessons, while excluding the ones still causing pain. The practice is most useful precisely for the unresolved ones, approached with gentleness rather than forced resolution.
Why it works
Standard gratitude practice targets positive events, which runs the risk of selective attention — appreciating the upswings while still resenting the downswings. Amor fati extends gratitude to the whole: the failures, the rejections, the hard seasons. This is not gratitude for suffering itself but for what the suffering was part of — a life and self you would not trade. The mechanism is meaning-making through ownership of the whole arc.
How to do it
- 1In a gratitude practice, add one item that was difficult or unwanted at the time.
- 2Write what that difficulty contributed to who you are or what you built.
- 3Be honest — not all difficulties produce growth; don’t fabricate meaning where there isn’t any yet.
- 4Over time, track whether more difficult events come to feel like legitimate parts of a story you own.
What the evidence says
ObservationalGratitude interventions have moderate evidence for improving well-being. Extending gratitude to difficult events is consistent with the post-traumatic growth and benefit-finding literature, though this specific variant has less direct evidence than positive-event gratitude.
Honest caveat: Positive-event gratitude evidence is the most robust; "difficulty gratitude" is a principled extension but less studied. Forced gratitude for trauma can be counterproductive — this practice works best at sufficient temporal and psychological distance from the event.
Common mistake
Including only the difficulties that have clear, resolved lessons, while excluding the ones still causing pain. The practice is most useful precisely for the unresolved ones, approached with gentleness rather than forced resolution.
IX Coach extends its gratitude prompts to include events that were hard, asking what you’d preserve from those periods rather than only cataloguing what went well.
Practice this with IX Coach →