Thanksgiving has come and gone, and unfortunately for many of us, the spirit of thanks went along with it. Of course it comes and goes again throughout the year, but with the end of the year right around the corner, our minds tend to shift towards planning (and anxiety) rather than giving or being thankful. The office turns into a hotbox as the end of the year race hits.

So how can we keep a thankful attitude 365 days a year? Would you even want to?

Being thankful or having gratitude is recognizing and appreciating the things you have in your life. Rather than focusing on what you lack, you focus on what you have gained. If you aren’t sure about wanting to be more thankful, consider this: researcher Dr. Robert A. Emmons, has done extensive studies on the effect of gratitude and has found that people who focused on being thankful were 25% happier than those who did not. They were also generally more optimistic and satisfied with their overall lives.

While it might seem cheesy to some, being thankful can change your life for the better. It doesn’t mean you have to lose your drive or determination, or even your competitive spirit. We need those personality traits to help us succeed as entrepreneurs, business leaders, and ambitious employees. But having gratitude for the things we often let slip by unnoticed in our lives gives us a different perspective on the world.

Perspective can change everything. Give yourself a little test. Try it on a day that you are in the office, so you are exposed to more potential stress. As you go about your day, keep a small notebook or piece of paper handy (or heck, who are we kidding, use your phone) and every time you have a negative thought, write down what it is, or at the very least make a tally mark. For every positive thought, about yourself, someone or something else, do the same. At the end of the day, see how your positive and negative thoughts weigh up. Do you see one side of the list being heftier? If it’s the negative side, you could probably do with some added gratitude in your life.

Changing your thoughts to thankful ones helps you shift your focus onto the positives in life. And we all know how the spiral goes; the more positive thoughts you have, the more positivity you welcome into your life. The more you focus on the negative, the more you will see the negative.

Adopting this attitude of gratitude can help you make the transition into 365 days of thankfulness. Try keeping a journal in which you list 5 or so things every day that you are thankful for. Do this in the morning or at night, and also before going to bed each night, write down 3 things you learned that day. Using the journal helps you remember to keep your thoughts focused on the positive, and writing what you learned each day helps you see these things as applicable affects in your life.

Another helpful tip to staying thankful is to keep yourself surrounded with positive people. This can’t always be controlled, depending on your environment, but do what you can when you can control it. Negativity is contagious, but so is gratitude. When you are around people who express contentment and thanks for their life, you may start to feel it wear off on you too. *Note-there is a difference between being grateful and being prideful. You don’t really want to surround yourself with people who are arrogant about what they have, as it undermines the whole point of gratitude. Remember, it’s good to be thankful for the material things you have, but thankfulness is more about being content with these things because of what they provide to you (shelter, the ability to see beautiful things, etc).

Try out the idea of being thankful 365 and see what changes it does for you. Like any change, it takes commitment, but remember that you are committing to changing your life for the better and opening a new world of possibilities and exploration. Odds are you will be thankful for what you find!