This is a special episode released on Thanksgiving day and it deals with bringing gratitude into your life.
Are you living your life with gratitude? Being thankful impacts more than just your personal life as it reflects in your business and your community. Let’s take a look at a framework about how to make this habit of being grateful a part of your daily living.
Thanksgiving for dual nationals and overseas Americans can be a mixed blessing. Those born abroad may have school or have to work on the day and depending on how the holiday is managed during childhood, it could just be another day or it can be a day of meaning and reflection. It can be a day of feeling alone or it can be a day of great blessings- either way you have control over what it will be.
In my day-to-day interaction with clients, our discussions focus around getting to a “next level” or a set of financial and life goals. In short, it’s always really about striving for something. Striving can keep us motivated in life but in the developed world I think there is a dark side to achievement and success and that is becoming so accustomed to the goodness that it becomes routine. And we forget the miracle of it. Maybe we even lose enthusiasm for life itself.
Thanksgiving is special because it is linked to harvest and celebrating what we have. Its about having a sense of appreciation for what you have in life, those things that often get left behind in a world of the latest tweet or notification. So today I wanted to teach you a framework that you can start using immediately.
Notice the Good
We have the ability to notice the good things in life or notice the bad things in life. It’s a matter of what we pay our attention to. It’s a fact that there’s a lot of stuff going on. Let’s just face it—in the world, in our local community, in our daily living, and all these things can be bad and good.
The good news is we can choose. I’m not saying to ignore the bad but I am saying to choose, to find the good so we can be grateful for what is there. So, look for the goodness, notice it. Take a moment to as yourself: “What is good here? What can come out of it?”
Because when we start to raise that awareness, when we start to look for those things; we’ll find it. If you want to find something negative, you’re going to find it. If you want to find something good, you’re going to find that too. Either way, you are right.
Although you may be separated by distance as my family is and you may be living as I do in a country that does not celebrate the holiday, take a few minutes to “Notice the Good” in the following 5 Key Areas of Life. Write down all that you are grateful for. If you’ve had a tough year, all the more reason to take some time for this.
1. Relationships. Who are some people in your life in the present day that you are grateful to know, have as mentors, or simply just be or have around? Maybe you have one or more people from the past who were blessings in your life. It’s possible that you have negative associations with people from your past or present. Think about one thing that person has done or how they influenced who you are today, and see if you can flip the negative to a positive. Can you feel grateful for that experience? How has this contributed to the person you are today? Can you be grateful for that experience?
2. Health. Hippocrates taught “a wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses”. What blessings do you have?
3. Mind. Did you know that practicing gratefulness can actually improve your health?. In one 2003 study, a group of subjects kept a personal journal for 10 weeks, in which they rated their mood, physical health, and other factors that contribute to being happy. They were told either to describe five things they were grateful for that had occurred in the past week (the gratitude condition), or they did the opposite and described five daily hassles (the hassles condition) that they were displeased about.Those in the gratitude condition reported fewer health complaints. Similar studies have shown improved emotions when someone who has a chronic illness focuses on an “attitude of gratitude” instead of feeling negative. Since gratitude is a mental activity, it’s a powerful finding to show how something totally non-physical can alter the physical activity of the brain. The general lesson here is that the brain responds to positive input and sends life-enhancing messages to every cell in the body. How are you feeding your mind? What blessings do you have in this area?
4. Finances. In addition to the material things you may have, consider your career and/or business. How well do they support your life? What are the blessings here? Consider also resources you have or have access to such as coaches and advisors. What if anything have they helped you learn or achieve?
5. Fun & Fulfillment. Think of activities or opportunities for personal enjoyment, and for refreshing your mind, body and spirit. Also think about time. What are your blessings (or hidden blessings in the form of awareness) when you consider the concept of time? Also think in terms of your community or your daily actions. What are the blessings? Are there people who give you the opportunity to step up and be a role model to? How do you feel about that opportunity?
Extend this Practice Beyond Today
I started a practice of keeping a gratitude journal about 2 years ago at a conference on high performance. The idea being taught was to heal from the past ultimately by not just accepting but by finding a way to be grateful for the lesson or the experience or some aspect of what may have been painful. I am now grateful for a couple of events in my childhood that I now realize gave me strength. We all get choices in life and one of those choices is how we deal with things that cause us emotional pain. Once you find a way to forgive, you pave the way to gratefulness. From there the door opens wide for good things to come into your life.
Get Yourself a Journal and write the five things that you’re grateful for every day. Maybe they’re going to be the same things day-in and day-out for a couple of days. Maybe you’ll struggle to find five things. The point is the practice, not the outcome.
The point of keeping the journal is:
- To write out what you feel and to feel what you write
- To read what you have written and reflect on it
- To appreciate what we have or what we have done
- To turn a negative into a positive.at times where we create negative associations with either environment, statements, people; where it brings up negativity in us.To find the goodness again and try to re-associate the goodness and transform the environment or those triggers that typically raise up negative thoughts into positive thoughts; to transform negative associations to positive ones. I know it’s more complex than that and I know that there’s more to it because of the emotions attached to it but at this stage all I’m saying is to recognize it and start to try to practice it. And over time, the tools, we can get the tools to you and help you with that.
- To provide an opportunity to record our personal growth
I am truly grateful for my family. I lost my sister in 2015, after a valiant fight with cancer and so I am even more grateful now for the moments and the experiences we share; I am grateful for my clients for challenging me everyday and for giving me the opportunity to serve, for my team without whom I would not be able to serve as many people in as many ways as we do, my personal and professional friends and I am grateful for every single one of the people in my community; to you for reading this post.
I wish you peace on this day of thankfulness. Bring the spirit of gratitude and abundance to those you see today. It will be a gift to them and to yourself.