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When things aren’t going your way from the moment you get out of bed in the morning and go to bed that night due to the challenges of life, it’s time to consider your attitude and what you’re grateful for in your life. Becoming depressed all the time, feeling frustrated at day-to-day events, experiencing sadness and not wanting to deal with life is not an attitude you’re meant to live with every day.
A person who wakes late and ends up unable to do a few things they do before work to get there on time should still feel grateful. They woke up! We all just go to bed thinking we will wake up and live each day without thinking, what if I don’t?
When traffic is bad, and you’ve delayed getting to your destination, even if you left early, you should feel grateful. What if it prevented you from getting into an accident? When you are at lunch and your meal is not the way you ordered it and you must return it, feel grateful. What if you would have become ill if it wasn’t prepared?
This is where gratitude is all about your attitude towards it. When you focus on what you’re grateful for happening each moment of your day, you smile more; you have a better attitude, your life becomes full of joy. When you are positive and have a grateful attitude others take notice, become affected and you provide hope and encouragement to them with your own attitude.
Life is full of challenges for everyone. It’s the attitude of gratitude that determines how you react to it.
I love this quote by Charles Swindoll, “We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. Our attitude is everything.”
I also like this one by Zig Ziglar, “Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.”
Has your attitude of gratitude been slacking? Are the troubles of life causing you to forget that you should feel grateful for what you ‘do’ have in your life?
Here are a few things you can do to change your attitude of gratitude.
1. Get a small notebook and every morning when you first get up write three things you’re grateful for in your life.
2. Each item you write expand on them with a sentence or two. You may say you’re grateful for your spouse. Why are you grateful for your spouse? What quality do you love about them? Did they do something that made you appreciate them more? Same with kids, job, home, finances, church, God, etc.
3. Say, thank you, to your spouse that morning for just being the person you love. It will bring a smile to their face and help them have a better day. Could be others you list you could do this to.
4. Write three things that happened that day you’re grateful for. They can be small things like a discount on gas or running into an old friend that day. They could be large things like finishing a project too.
5. Write one thing you did today to show appreciation to someone else. That thank you you gave a co-worker or a friend, or a pat on the back to someone that did something outstanding. A praise or thank you can go a long way to boost others and you also boost yourself.
6. Write the one thing you’re grateful for about yourself. It could be your sense of humor, your positive attitude, your ability to get things done, being consistent, determined, focused, faithful, etc. It is always good to recognize something about yourself that you feel grateful for as it helps strengthen you in the long run.
If you have been struggling with this area in your life, then I challenge you to do these simple steps for thirty days and see how it improves overall. This alone will change your life for the better in ways you never thought possible. Try it!
Blessings!
Lisa
