The New Year actually starts in February

February is a great time to launch a 2025 project! Plus, an update

A bit of housekeeping before we get into it!

Today, I am turning my paid subscription option back on, so if you’re already a paid subscriber, you’ll be charged unless you opt out. I turned off the paid option last year because I wasn’t sending out emails out as regularly. But I am back to writing on a regular basis, and, to paraphrase Aminatou Sow, “$50 is not a lot of money for access to someone’s brain.”

I TOTALLY understand if you aren’t ready to pay for a subscription to Gratitude Practice, and there is no pressure here. I will still send out some free posts, and I so appreciate your being here, in any capacity.

If you choose to spring for a paid subscription, you will have access to all future posts, of course, plus to the archives. Scroll back and you’ll see that in 2022 I led paid subscribers though their own Thank You Year, complete with prompts and PDFs to fill in. If you’d like to spend a year focused on gratitude, that’s a great place to start.

Is it obvious to say that January has been hard?

It’s truly the wrong month to try for a fresh start. You’re hungover from the holiday madness (not to mention, possibly, the booze!). I know I am not the only one who will be glad to rip off this calendar page and see a blank one after the fires, the sicknesses, the news alerts. February has got to be better, right?

It will if you decide to make it so! I mean, no promises here, but launching a feel-good project for 2025 is your best chance of turning this shit around.

And it is not too late: January 31 is actually the day I launched my Thank You Year.

Here comes my origin story; feel free to skip this paragraph if you already know it! In January 2018, I was commuting from my home in Brooklyn out to New Jersey on the train. At that point in my life, I was feeling overall sort of scattered and cranky. I was in life’s rush hour—busy with two little kids and work, leaving very little time for friendship or hobbies or anything else. One morning, on the train, I turned to a stack of thank you notes I’d promised to donors of a fundraiser I had organized. It was the next item on my never-ending to-do list—and it was one that I’d put off as long as I could. Once I started writing, I immediately felt—better. A blanket of calm seemed to wrap around me. My breathing slowed; my heart rate seemed to slow; my shoulders and jaw relaxed. I left the train feeling lighter, more clear-headed, more aware of my surroundings. And this sensation would return every morning on that train, when I would choose to write thank you notes instead of burying myself in my phone. On January 31, I realized I had written 31 thank you notes—one for every day of the year so far, and I thought, this feels so good—what if I kept it up all year long?

All that to say, I give you full permission to start your feel-good 2025 project tomorrow, or next week. Here are some ideas for what that might be.

FOOD

Choose a type of cuisine to explore, and go to one new restaurant in that genre every month. My friend Nick Papa started a Substack to shine a light on Italian-American red-sauce joints all over Brooklyn—super excited to follow along.

Try one new recipe a week and become proficient at making… fresh pasta? Cookies? Pie? Curry?

ART

Visit your favorite museum every month (if you’re lucky enough to live close to a great one). Dan and Becky Okrent have been going to The Met once a week; Gretchen Rubin pops into The Met nearly every day. Bianca Bosker’s book Get the Picture has great ideas on improving your museum-going experience: Choose fewer pieces and engage with them longer (pick out a few details you like or don’t) and only read the placards after you’ve formed your opinion.

Read The Artist’s Way, buy a notebook, and get cranking on those morning pages and artist dates!

Choose a director and watch all of her or his movies in order. Better yet, not to get ahead of myself, host these as parties; invite fellow film lovers.

SOCIALIZING

Organize a weekly social event. I play tennis on Thursday nights with five other women. After five-plus years I wish my game was better than it is… but the vibes are impeccable.

Become a thrower of parties– big and small. Apparently there are articles in NYM and Vogue about just this. Too lazy to search and link, just trust me on this. The time is now! Be the party change you want to see in the world!

Priya Parker has lots of great ideas and a philosophy that I will attempt to summarize: Understand what your gathering is for and make that clear to guests. Don’t be afraid to leave people out!

I am inspired by the late, great Pableaux Johnson, who hosted a standing red beans and rice party every Monday night. Ditto Nina Stibbe. I adored her book Love, Nina, and am currently listening to Went to London, Took the Dog, in which she writes: “If there is one thing I could change about the last 20 years, it’s that I would have more people round for tea, friends, and not shy away from people. It’s so simple and joyful. I’ll make it my New Year’s resolution, if I remember.”

READING & WRITING

Buy a cheap 50-card pack and once a week, send a note to someone for no reason at all. (Or, hey, maybe thank them for something or other! It’s never too late!)

Set a reading goal for yourself and meet it, with the help of your local indie store and your library.

You could also try REMOVING something this year.

Social media. Every time I open Instagram I say to myself, This is a marketplace, so, what would you want to buy today? And before I post, I ask myself, what are you selling? Is it your book or your gratitude talks? Is it happy family? Perfect life? I’ve been deleting social media for weeks or months at a time. Recommend!

DoorDash and similar. OK, I worked at DoorDash, along with a lovely and talented group of people and to them I say: I’m sorry! I don’t want to bite any hands who once fed me but…. I don’t think that these apps are doing anything good for you, the industry, the environment. I said yes to my son’s request for mediocre Korean fried chicken a few weeks ago and was charged $90. Like, what? How? The insanity needs to stop. Support local restaurants!! But maybe just swing by and grab that food? Or eat there? Get out of here with those $90 wings.

Impulse purchases: If I want something lately, it has to live in purgatory on a list in my notes app for at least a week before I pull the trigger. Courtney Carver from Be More with Less is my guru in this department.

Related to all above and it’s obvious but, your phone! At least, in some capacity. You’ve probably heard this advice that’s been ricocheting around the internet: Treat your phone like a landline: Keep it docked in one place and go check it throughout the day instead of clutching it close like a little baby bird. At the very least, we can agree no phones at the dinner table, right?

To remind me of this, I made this Kate Lindsay quote my phone wallpaper, which I found in Aminatou Sow’s newsletter: “Not being bored is why you always feel busy… You do have time—you just spend it on your phone. By refusing to ever let your brain rest, you are choosing to watch other people’s lives on a screen at the expense of your own.” Daaang.

xo

Gina

PS! Today I led a GRATITUDE ZOOM with a terrific PR company. We spent an hour talking about how (and why) to incorporate more gratitude into the workplace and into your life. Colleagues shared extremely touching

Know a company who might want to have me come talk about gratitude and lead a workshop (virtual or in person)? Message me!