Recently, I was listening to CBC’s Gill Deacon asking listeners to share what they were most grateful for over the past week.
One listener’s response prompted this post by sharing: “The last 3 minutes it took to think about all the things I am grateful for.”
We all have something to be grateful for, no matter how crazy your life is or how awful a situation sometimes feels.
I can remember when our two week old was in the hospital for a month. At the beginning of the journey we weren’t sure what was going on. It was a scary and crazy time but our choice was to focus on the fact that we were so grateful to have access to amazing doctors and facilities.
It was a choice.
Gratitude is an antidote for so many things.
It creates a new perspective.
If gratitude is already an autopilot response, then I am preaching to the choir.
If gratitude isn’t an autopilot response, here are….
3 Reminders of When to Practice Your New Habit of Being Grateful:
1. Things Are Not Going Your Way: Often my autopilot response will be to feel frustrated or disappointed when outcomes aren’t what I had hoped for. What I know is that staying here doesn’t serve me or the situation. This is where you can:
- Choose to acknowledge what you are grateful for within the situation.
- See what you can do differently next time to get a different outcome.
2. You Are Feeling Overwhelmed: I start feeling overwhelmed when I am looking at the big picture, all the things that have to happen, all of the balls in the air. I find it helpful to break down the situation into bite size pieces:
- Acknowledging what you can be grateful for
- Taking control of what you can and letting go of what you can’t.
3. Going to Sleep: Every night when I’m lying down to sleep I think about three things that I am grateful for during the day. What’s awesome is that this process leads you through the journey of reliving the day’s events and realizing how much we do have to be grateful for. When I am saying goodnight to my children I will also ask them what they were grateful for in their day, and their responses often amaze me.
Stopping and taking inventory of the wonderful things in our lives adds so much value to our every day and impacts the people around us in ways you often don’t even realize.
What are you grateful for?
When you share you have the opportunity to remind others in our #PowerTribe of something they may have forgotten about.
Get Out Of Your Own Way 