How Daily Gratitude Reshapes Your Faith and Focus

I’m closing out this 10-part Habit Series with one of the simplest and most transformative practices I’ve ever picked up: daily gratitude.

In this episode, I share why spending just one or two minutes thanking God before your day begins can quietly reshape your mindset, soften pessimism, and strengthen your ability to persevere in the long haul. I’ll walk you through how I practice daily gratitude, why I keep it intentionally simple, and how this habit has helped me stay grounded even in seasons marked by uncertainty, grief, and things I cannot control.

We’ll also zoom out and talk about why gratitude matters so much when you’re nurturing a God shaped dream. Consistency, self-leadership, and perseverance are not just personality traits. They are muscles you build. Daily gratitude is one small habit that strengthens all three.

If you’ve felt discouraged, stuck in negativity, or unsure how to keep going faithfully with the dream God has placed on your heart, this episode will help you reset your focus and start your day from a place of trust and truth.

And before I wrap up, I’m also giving you a behind-the-scenes look at what’s coming next for the Devoted Dreamers Podcast. I’ll share how Season 14 is evolving, why I’m changing the format, and what you can expect as we head into a new season focused on taking meaningful action on your God-shaped dream.

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Transcript

Merritt Onsa:
What is something you could do today that would impact your God shaped dream and your ability to persevere in it for the long haul? Hi, I'm Merritt Onsa, your Devoted Dreamers host, and I am an authority on what it looks like to pursue a God shaped dream. And over the next several mini episodes, I'm going to be talking about building simple, small habits that will build into you confidence and the consistency you need to run your race after the dream God has given you. Let's build some new habits.

Hey friend, I am closing out this January habit series with the habit of daily gratitude. Actually, this is the habit that I first picked up last fall. Maybe you've heard me talk about it on the podcast at some point. The habit is very simply:

Every morning before your feet hit the floor, spend two minutes or one, three if you want to, expressing gratitude to God, our Father in heaven, and do it before you do anything else. At least these are the rules that I've set for myself in the habit of practicing daily gratitude.

And there's a lot of ways that you could vary this based on your personality, your needs, your interests, how bored you get with stuff like this.

Some ways that I've thought about shaking it up a little bit are focusing on a theme each week or attempting for a week to not repeat an item that you've thanked God for. Like today, if you thank God for breath in your lungs, that tomorrow and the rest of the week, you would thank him for something different.

And generally what it looks like for me is really these ordinary everyday things. Cause I think, you know, yes, we can thank God for the big miraculous things that happen that we're like, my gosh, God, if it weren't for you, I know this wouldn't have happened.

But what we forget sometimes is if it weren't for him, there would be no breath in our lungs or sunrise in the morning or peace in our marriages, whatever it is. I like these, for me at least, to be recognizing the common grace that God has given us.

And honestly, if you've never had a practice of daily gratitude, I think you might surprise yourself; some days it feels harder to think of something and some days you're like, the list is just exploding.

And so if you've thought about, hey, I could use some more gratitude in my life or some more thankfulness to God, like this would be a great one for you to think about picking up. And the reason that I decided to do this for myself really was the result of noticing just this like undertone of pessimism in my life for this period of time in the fall. I found that I was really grumpy a lot.

I had a hard time seeing the bright side of things. I got there, like not even really realizing that that's where I was living. But once I saw it, I knew I didn't want to live this way. I knew I didn't want my children to live with this kind of mom that was always kind of a downer.

And yes, life definitely has its challenges for all of us. And for me personally, I've had some really painful things going on in my family, in my household with loved ones. These are things I cannot change. I cannot control. And all of that makes me feel helpless and out of control.

So I know that I have two choices: I can give into fear and uncertainty and negativity and the worst case scenario thinking, or I can use it as an opportunity to choose a different way to think, to examine my mindset, to realize how circumstances are impacting me. And I can choose a different way to live.

And so that's why I started the daily gratitude practice.

And what's amazing is that within a week of beginning this simple habit, I began to notice a change in my overall state of mind and being. I began to become aware of all the things that I do really have to be grateful for in my life, even in the midst of the hard, and all the ways that I can praise God and celebrate his character.

And He's powerful. Like his word renews our mind and a heart of gratitude repositions our thinking about our daily life.

And again, now that I've been doing this more than a few months, I think I started it maybe in November. It's really become second nature. I hardly ever forget anymore to do it. And I'm grateful even for that.

So here's a couple of ideas of how you could make it easy. This does not have to be an elaborate experience. It doesn't even have to be written down. Writing it down for me would be one of the things that would potentially keep it from happening. Cause I'd be like, oh, where's my pen? And I can't find my journal. Did I leave it my office or in my bedroom?

I'd spend way too much time thinking about what to write, judging what I'd already written. Was this good enough? Hey, did I actually write this down earlier this week? You know, am I repeating myself?

So seriously, whatever you have to do for yourself to keep it simple, ask like, what is the easiest, bottom line way for me to ensure the habit occurs? Cause that's what's important, right? Like expressing the gratitude is actually the point.

And then like any habit make the commitment.

So for me, it was, you know, before my feet hit the floor or like the minute I wake up in the morning, which, you know, sometimes you're a little groggy. It doesn't exactly happen right at that minute. But I like the idea of like, do it before you do anything else, before your mind starts to get into the day, before you pick up your phone or look at social media or listen to news or even listen to your favorite song, like start there.

Once my feet hit the floor, I'm off and running and I've forgotten it all together. I might remember like an hour later, but I really like the idea of like before I even lift my head from the pillow, I'm spending just a minute or two thanking God.

Or even like if I can't think of something, just asking him, Lord, what, what could I thank you for today? And just listening in the quiet of the morning. If your morning is quiet, some of you with little ones, it's not all that quiet.

But if you do forget, if the little ones wake you and you're off and running or having to take care of a diaper or a meal or getting somebody somewhere, for a habit like this that you're intending to do every day at the same time each day, if you do forget, just do it as soon as you remember, no judgment. It might mean just pausing something that you've already begun or taking 30 seconds to refocus your mind so that you can like, okay, God, what do I have to be grateful, thankful for today?

The commitment and the diligence to stick to what you've said you're going to do. That's the muscle you want to be building here. Not the muscle of, "Oh, I can do it later," because oftentimes later never comes.

So just as soon as you remember, just take five seconds. God, thank you for the day that you've given me.

And then choose to do it. Choosing to do it, even when the moment has passed, like the perfect moment when it's still quiet while you're laying in bed, choosing to do it anyway, in the not perfect moment, is a choice not just to do the thing you said you wanted to do, but to strengthen the habit, which is the whole point of having a habit in the first place, right? Yes, you get the benefits of doing the habit.

But as I've been talking about here in this habit series, like what we're doing is we're strengthening a muscle. And with the daily gratitude habit, I am wrapping up my series on building habits in the new year or really all year long, whenever you're listening to this, habits that will help you nurture a God shaped dream.

Throughout this series, I've asked you to consider just one to two small habits you could pick up today. Like just start right now that would give you some practice at being consistent at something over a period of time.

And also practice in leading yourself and continuing to learn and grow and strengthen some of those muscles that we need. Yes, the habits themselves are opportunities for better health, maybe mental health or physical health, or simplified tactics for managing your daily life. All of those are great.

But this practice of habit building is really a means to an end in my mind because it does require both consistency and self leadership to establish and maintain habits.

And you guessed it, consistency and self leadership are incredibly helpful traits for pursuing a God shaped dream because consistency builds your competence in that specific area, whatever area you've chosen to work on. If you do something 7, 10, 15 days in a row, you're going to get better at it. You're going to change how you do it or tweak it so that it works better for you. You usually get better at something as you practice it regularly.

And in building new habits, you get a chance to learn about yourself and what it takes to keep going. Even when you don't want to do something in the moment that requires self leadership and builds perseverance when you choose to do it, even when you don't want to.

And all of this put together wrapped up with a nice bow, keeping regular habits with consistency, self leadership, perseverance, every single one of these are foundational practices and qualities that will eventually support you in nurturing your dream.

And during this series, I've offered you a tool for hopefully increased success in building your habits. It's just a simple habit tracker because Peter Drucker reminds us: what you don't measure, you can't improve. If you don't know how you're doing, if you don't have a gauge, it's impossible to know whether your practice of a particular habit has caused any change or shift, better or worse.

So if you haven't grabbed my free habit tracker, you can find that at merrittonsa.com/habits. There's a PDF version you can use, and see what happens when you start tracking the small, simple habits you've begun this year.

Are you ready for season 14 of the Devoted Dreamers podcast? We're going to return with all new episodes later this month. And this time I'm shaking up the format just a little bit. 

So if you've been around a little while, you've probably heard my cadence of interviews and solo episodes. I now have over 350 episodes in the archives and in there I know that you can find interviews of dreamers who have a dream similar to you or a heart for certain people groups similar to you. 

So I decided here in season 14, I wanted to do things a little bit differently because what happens when I interview those amazing women for the podcast, we end up having these incredible conversations on the front end, before I hit record. And then on the back end, after we've finished the interview with reflection on all the things that God brought to mind as we were talking.

And it's those kind of more behind the scenes conversations that I want to let you in on this year. 

So the way I'm looking at this is instead of bringing in guests to do interviews, I'm going to bring back some of my favorite guests from over the last 10 years of the Devoted Dreamers new voices and minds around this topic of God-shaped dreams. 

I'm calling it a conversation with visiting co-hosts. So we're going to explore themes that matter to you and your ability to step into a God-shaped dream because I want you to do more than think about your dream. I want you to begin to take action. And those are the topics that we're gonna start to talk about. 

So this is for you if you need some protected time to process your dream and how you might step into it. Each of these episodes will be a jumping off point. They'll be shorter than my interviews from the past. 

If you're one of those people that's had a nagging desire to go after a dream, maybe for decades, but you either haven't known how to begin or your life has been full with other responsibilities and maybe now feels like the time. Maybe you've been caring for children or aging parents or you've been in a full-time job and now that's about to change. 

Whatever shift or transition that you're beginning to experience in your life, maybe it's just getting older and realizing as you see the reality of aging in you and in the people that you love, you're beginning to realize that there's a certain amount of time I have left, and I don't know how much time that is. And I want to start to make the most of that time now. 

If that's you, this is the place for you. This is where you're going to learn how to start, how to keep going, how to keep your eyes open to the challenges and continue to stay faithful to what God has called you to. 

I want the Devoted Dreamers podcast to be a place that feels like home for you and your God-shaped dreams. I can't wait to share the first episodes with you in February.