The gratitude journal
you'll actually keep

Whatever you're grateful for that day, in your own words — a slow morning, a text from a friend, coffee that was good. Steps asks two questions: what you're grateful for today, and what you're grateful for in life; the second is there so the first doesn't shrink to the weather. One answer is enough, and three is the most it invites. A few words are plenty.

Everyone does, and it is the most common reason people stop. Two things help. The second question reaches wider than today on purpose, and the templates are different ways real people kept a gratitude journal — Oprah's five things, the Ignatian examen — that become your prompts when you text Steps a link. And on the two gratitude questions, when your answers start repeating, Steps says so, gently, in the line before the question — never about your life.

Then don't pretend. Write what's actually there, or write nothing — a blank day is a blank day, and Steps never chases it. Forcing gratitude is how people come to resent it; the question is an open door, not a test. On a bad day it is still just a journal, and a page can be a place to put things.

You didn't fail at it; the setup did. A notebook or an app asks you to remember it, open it, and face a blank page — one busy week is enough to end it, and Oprah says the same happened to hers. Steps takes all three away: it texts you first, it lives in the thread you already open every day, and when you reply it asks you a question, so the page is never blank. And if you stop again, every word stays saved.

No. On the mornings you picked, one short text at the time you chose. If you write nothing that day, one follow-up in the early afternoon — and you can switch that one off. No streaks, no scores, no "don't lose your progress". Tell it "keep it short" or "don't ask twice" and it remembers. A quiet week is saved as a quiet week, and the next text arrives on your schedule.

A program, not a person. It asks you a question when you reply, saves what you text, and counts your own words when you ask — it never analyzes you or gives advice. Your journal is encrypted, stored in the EU, never sold, never used for ads, never used to train AI. The one exception, said plainly: to make Steps reply better, someone at Steps may read a record of a conversation, with your name, email and phone number masked out first.

Yes: the first 30 days are free, and we don't ask for a card. They start the moment you say hi on iMessage and end without a charge — nothing is billed when they end. If Steps earned a place in your mornings, you subscribe from your account on the web, at the amount you choose. Either way, every word you wrote stays readable and exportable at app.steps.org, free, forever.

No. Steps is a gratitude journal: it asks what you're grateful for, saves your answer, and reads it back when you ask — it never analyzes what you wrote, scores your mood, or gives advice. On an anxious day or a bad one it is still just a journal, and a page can be a place to put things. It is for adults, not therapy and not medical care. If anything you write suggests you are in danger, Steps stops and points you to real people (steps.org/safety); if things are heavy, please talk to someone who can help.