By ERIK SCHUCKERS

The Center for Creativity held a workshop last month on making your own gratitude journal. Since November is National Gratitude Month, and as many of us head into a season where we are encouraged to reflect on what we’re thankful for, let’s take a moment to consider what we mean when we talk about gratitude.

For years, I was skeptical about the value of “gratitude,” or rather, of what we often think of as gratitude: “Look on the bright side” or various versions of “at least you have a job / a family / your health.” There is something saccharine in those versions, something fundamentally dishonest. Asking yourself to be thankful for a job in which you feel devalued or diminished, for example, is closer to gaslighting.

I eventually understood that I was confusing gratitude with a kind of toxic optimism. Gratitude focuses inward, not on an outward-facing comparison of what you have (or seem to have) with what others don’t (or seem not to). It is intensely personal: No one else can tell you what you should be thankful for.

For anyone interested in creativity, this will feel familiar. And in fact, while research is still at a very early stage, connections between gratitude and creativity are beginning to emerge, largely as a result of the ways in which gratitude reduces stress. The less stress we experience, the less likely we are to resort to rigid thinking and the more comfortable we become with taking risks.

Both creativity and gratitude are often thought of as states of being, but they’re really practices. Exercising one can help you exercise the other.

But how do you begin?

• Stay in the moment. Both gratitude and creative making focus you on being present and mindful. What are you grateful for right now?

• Small is OK. There will be days, and sometimes weeks or months, when it’s hard to identify opportunities for gratitude. A cup of hot sweet tea or a book or a walk with your dog are as deserving of recognition as something “larger.”

• Be specific. Many of us identify family, friends or health as sources of gratitude, but it can be hard to connect more deeply and meaningfully with those rather abstract categories. Try focusing on one person, one action that someone has taken that makes you feel valued, or one activity that your current level of health enables.

• Find ways to express thankfulness. This is both a critical part of practicing gratitude, and a chance to engage creatively. Journals work beautifully, but there are as many options as people. Write a note or letter to someone, or make them something. Take photos or record some ambient sound on a walk. Sit with some paint or colored pencils, play a favorite song, and let your hand move in response. Let sources of gratitude inspire you to get out of your brain and into the world.

Celebrate giving thanks the other 11 months of the year, and make practicing gratitude, like practicing creativity, a regular and important part of your self-care.

Erik Schuckers is the Center for Creativity manager of programming and communications. His forthcoming book, “Pretty Boys in Trouble,” will be released this winter.