Now a daily gratitude devotional, you can probably find any number of kinds of devotionals that are both religious and non religious. And it's just basically a daily meditation in a book. And it might be broken down into weeks, days, months or something like that. And so, daily devotionals are good for helping, for example, people of certain belief systems stay focused on habitual spending time in their belief system and reminding themselves of what they believe and living that and practicing that reflecting on that in the significance of how they go about their day with a different mindset. And it refreshes your mind and spirit with a healthier state of being. And so if you can find some kind of daily gratitude, devotional or reflection book, or even a book that just has like stories or concepts and read one each day, that's a great way to also cultivate gratitude.

He keeps it in your mind and it gives you a different concept each day. And, you know, you could use the obvious more conventional devotional, that's a daily practice. For example, if you use a devotional that changes his theme every day, and you ask yourself how the concept connects with gratitude, you could use a regular devotional, because in every concept, there's something to be grateful. But sometimes we forget to be grateful for the abstract blessings in our life. And, you know, that are less viable for, you know, less visible, I should say, not viable or more viable, but love, peace, family, and things like that. And so doing a daily devotional can remind us of the blessings that we have, like mercy and gratitude and love and kindness and long suffering and all those things.

And it can be a parallel, you know, to what we're experiencing in our own lives, and we can see those reflected in our lives. And that's something that we should never forget that devotion is an opportunity to write about different spiritual concepts for which we're doing For so you could actually supplement this with a journal and reflect on maybe use the stream of conscious writing for a page or two, it doesn't have to be long, even a paragraph, just what you got out of that experience and how you can connect it to what's going on in your day. Number nine is obvious. But it is a technique that really helps reading books. If you find a good gratitude thing, devotion or book, going through a little bit on a daily basis keeps us connected to the concept of gratitude, or to something that's positive that keeps us connected to good things in our lives.

And it's likely, you know, like a regular devotional, it gives us a new concept each day, except in the case of just a regular book. It's probably one thing and it's all connected. And you might read a chapter a day or a chapter a week, but give yourself a little time to step back and reflect on it, maybe write about it or something like that. But basically, to break down and absorb the information. I've given you a few specifics. strategies on the PDF that I'll repeat here.

And so when you read a book, you a lot of times will read something. And if you're like me, and it's late at night and you space out, you probably forgot what the hell you just read it, pardon the expression. But so how do you retain things? It's just like when you're in school and you study, except this is something you really want to know. And it's fun. And so here's a few techniques that have helped me increase the impact and practice a book can have in my life, one, read each chapter twice, read each chapter twice.

And so if you want to absorb material, yep, read it twice. It can be especially illuminating and powerful, and you will retain the information better. And so I recommend reading the chapter or section twice the first go round, and then going back and reading through the whole book again, chapter by chapter if you have a chance. The next one is read aloud, read aloud. If you feel weird Reading to yourself you can read to someone who's willing to listen or someone who's just there and ignoring you if they don't mind listening, or you could read it to your dog or a plant or just to yourself or your belief in a higher being. Just read aloud though, if you find the space to do so read your devotion or peace or chapter aloud, when you read aloud is the same as reading more than once you retain it better, it soaks into your mind better.

So when you read each chapter multiple times and read it aloud as well, then you absorb it in the ways that possible. Also, simply reading a text aloud multiple times doesn't guarantee memorizing it, but you will retain a lot more. And so the next one is read with expression and engagement as you read aloud, give the text your full attention. If you want to retain the information, it's vital to engage with it on a visceral level. Use varied expression and clear voice when you read it aloud. And if you're doing it in your mind, kind of do the same thing.

Think it has more emotional impact, it's more engaging. And so everyone has been to a boring sermon speaker class with a monotone voice. Maybe you've heard the Charlie Brown teacher want want want, want, want, want want walk, so you don't want that you don't remember anything that the person said. You've also been somewhere like that where you had an engaging speaker and you were just engrossed. And so when you use that expressive tone, it engages you more, it engages you emotionally, it's more memorable. And so you also absorb the material more.

The next one is to underline and highlight key passages that stand out to you. We're still in the different techniques of reading a book. You can do this on an E reader or a traditional paperback right in the margins. I know some people are weird about, you know, writing in a book, you know, if it's a 200 year old copy of the Bible or something or the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita, I wouldn't recommend that But in most cases, I would say go for it write in the margins, you can write in a new book I give you permission to do. So just don't write an ancient book. But underlying highlight, make notes, write in the margins, get a notebook or journal and write down the page numbers in the passages.

So you can keep a record of the ones that have impacted you the most, and the Kindle and the Nook and similar things like that already have that feature, you can go back and I would just take time occasionally to go back and look back at those notes and start to get a remembrance of what the impact that book had on you so you can re absorb that information. And the next technique is to go back and look back through and review your notes and highlights. How did they stand out to you what was going through your mind at the time, what you know about the passage lift and impact and made a mark on you? How can you apply this material in some way in your life. Doing these techniques will help you more in terms of a devotional or similar text, so Think about applying these to not only reading a book but a daily devotional.

Keep in mind that you can overlap, adapt, and double up on some of these techniques and they'll be even more effective.