What is Gratitude?

Gratitude is a sense of appreciation for someone or something, for what they have done for you. We should all be grateful for the things people do for us, but the sense of thankfulness I’m talking about is the state of being, whereby we appreciate everything all of the time.
This constant state of gratitude is surely impossible to maintain, when external disappointments occur. Nevertheless, we should strive to reach this state anyway; any improvement in our state of gratitude can only be a good thing.

Practising gratitude with a simple thank you.

Entry level gratitude is saying a simple thank you to people. From appreciation of good deeds done, to gifts received, we are all brought up to say ‘thanks, I appreciate that’.

What about when people are just doing their job. The server brings the food and the cashier hands over the goods we’ve just bought. The habit of thanking them is easy and we surely all do it?

How do you react when people offer you a compliment? Do you deprecate it to appear humble? “Oh, this old thing? I’ve had it for years.” Why not offer sincere thanks instead. The effect on the complimentor will be good, but it will be profound to you.

Why is being grateful Important?

Gratitude is an important state to strive for, even if we don’t achieve it all the time. What we tend to focus on, expands in our awareness. This phenomenon is well known. It means that if we look for things to be grateful for, we will see more things to be grateful for. The opposite is also true.

“Learn to desire what you already have, and you will have all you need.”

There seems to be magic at work here. For some reason, if I focus on what’s good in my life, I feel better. The better I feel, the more things there are to be grateful for. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Money and gratitude

When I’m grateful for the amount of money I have, I seem to receive more. Yes, I know it’s not really magic and is probably because I am more aware of the income, because I’m grateful for it. It could also be that the more grateful I am, the more likely I am to do the things that are rewarded with money. I’m thinking of making more sales, getting more customers, and doing a better job. This is the real Law of Attraction in operation.

How to become grateful

If you suspect that you are not as grateful as you could be and you are open to some tips on becoming grateful, here are a few techniques to help you.

3 things to be grateful for

Every morning as part of my daily routine, after I meditate, I will write out at least 3 things to be grateful for. These could be things that happened the day before. They could be little things like the fact that the Wi-Fi works or they could be things we usually take for granted, such as – I have my eyesight.

Imagine you lost it

Another technique is to practise going though your day and imagining that you lost the things you have. What if I lost my house? What would that feel like? This will automatically make you more appreciative of what you do have.
You can also do this with people. Imagine what life would be like without that person in it. Once you’ve done that you will have a greater appreciation of them.

Gratitude list

The gratitude list is a tip I got from Lynne Grabhorn in her book “Excuse me, your life is waiting”. She recommends writing out a list of 20 things you are grateful for and carrying this list with you.
When you are going about your day and a negative thought pops up, simply look at one of the items on the list and focus on this instead. This doesn’t mean you will naively ignore the things that need attending to, but you will be in a better frame of mind, to deal with it.

Gratitude book

If you are struggling to come up with a list of things you are grateful for, take a small notebook around with you. Every time something good happens or you see something agreeable, write it down in the gratitude book. These items could be things like:

• The birdsong was pleasant.
• There was no queue in the coffee shop.
• I found a parking space easily.

What’s good about this?

As you become more thankful for the mundane things in life, you will still be confronted with things that are negative. Plans might not work out, failure occurs, someone is rude. The negative thing is still negative, you can’t control external events. You can however control your thoughts.

Practise asking yourself ‘what’s good about this’? There may not be much, but there will be something. Not only will this change your outlook, but it will equip you with a better attitude to address what happened. For instance, what did you learn about this failure that will make you better next time?

In the end, things are as they are and there’s not much you can do about it. You can only change yourself. It’s all ok. Accept it, be grateful.

The post Practising Gratitude appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Why is everyone else having fun

The other day I looked on Facebook to see if I could find some inspiration for a great blog post. As I scrolled down the newsfeed, a sudden thought flashed across my mind. Why is everyone else having fun? I saw former colleagues on a night out, having a great time. Then I saw an old school friend on a great looking adventure. Another old school friend looking like he is doing really well financially. Then there was a good friend doing really well in his career. Happy smiley faces – why they are all having fun … and not me?
“… and not me?”

Halt.
Rewind.

My psychological training and self-hypnosis kicks in and I catch myself. I mentally rewind. I replay the mental movie again. This time I mentally congratulate each of my friends. Then I Like, Like, Like.

What Happened There?

For a moment I let the immature part of my psyche take over and instead of seeing joy and abundance out there in the world, I focused on scarcity.
You see it’s not Facebook’s fault. It was mine. People only put their highlights up. They don’t put the mundane stuff up. Imagine if they did, it would be boring.

It’s the same with Celebrities, when we compare ourselves to them. We don’t see the years of practice they put in behind the scenes to hone their skills. Also, we don’t see the hours they spend in makeup. We don’t see the monotonous work they put in at the gym. When they are at their worst we definitely don’t see them. We only see the results and only the results they want us to see.
Just as your life is not all boring, they aren’t having fun all the time. In fact, I’ll let you into a secret, towards the end of this section.

How to be happy and successful.

Have faith and hope

Affirmations and visualisation can help. Sometimes you may need to change your beliefs. This can take time, but is well worth it. Hypnosis can also help.

Action towards a goal – consistency

Having some sort of goal to work towards helps in happiness. Humans are goal-seeking creatures; we need something to aim for.

Enjoy the process

As I said, it’s important to have a worthy goal to aim for. However, it’s important to enjoy the process of moving towards that goal. Fall in love with the process and you will move effortlessly towards the goal.
Get out of your head and live in the now. If you try to live in the now, you automatically focus on what is around you now this moment.

Congratulate other people.

Going back to our Facebook friends. How about sincerely congratulating them on their successes? Will this make you have more fun or be successful? Maybe, maybe not, but it will make you happier.

Gratitude

Finally have gratitude. I strongly recommend keeping a morning gratitude journal. I have some set questions that I write at least two answers to, every single day. This forces me to focus on what’s good in my life. This then sets the tone for the day. Here are some of the questions I ask myself every morning:

1. What was great about yesterday?
2. What am I grateful for in my life right now?
3. I Think about what am I really excited about today and in the future?
4. What do I appreciate about the people I love?

How could doing all this make you more happy and successful?
First, it changes your immediate mood. Then as you repeat it and it becomes a habit, your outlook on life will start to change. As your outlook changes, you become more positive and confident. You try things you might not have done. You make braver decisions. This is when you start to see tangible results in your life.

Then you might find that people look at you and say how lucky you are.
So getting back to that little secret I mentioned before, your friends on Facebook are jealous of you. Think about that. Have you ever put up a post with pictures of your life highlights, like the Night out with friends or the family reunion? Someone somewhere will look at that and envy you.

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The final step in using the Law of Attraction properly, to get what you want  is the use of Gratitude. I say it is the final step, but actually, it should be the first step. You should always start from a place of gratitude.

Start from gratitude

In a recent study, it was shown that gratitude makes you happier. Happy people tend to be more optimistic. Optimistic people tend to be more successful. So, there is no magic involved here, it is simply another strange way our brains work.
If you begin your goal setting process with gratitude for what you already have, it actually makes you less attached to the outcome. It is curious that when you become unattached to the outcome, you seem to get what you want anyway. I believe this is where the Aladdin’s’ Lamp type of explanation for the Law of Attraction comes from.

My Sales Business

One example I can give you is from my sales business, where I routinely call 20 cold call prospects per day. On each call, I frankly don’t care what happens. I am polite and go through my story. If they’re interested, great. If not then that’s great as well.
I am happy and grateful that I already have plenty of prospects to work on, but these 20 cold calls per day are one of my daily income producing activities. I just hit my numbers every day. As long as I do this, more leads come. I could imagine that if I came from a place of desperation or lack, this would come across in my tonality and I would struggle getting leads.

How can you practise being grateful?

In my morning routine, I practice writing down 10 things I am grateful for. They have to be different things every day. First, you go through the obvious things like, having your family and friends around, the love of your life partner, your health, the money you do have now. Then you start to run out of things to be grateful for. This is where you have to force yourself to come up with a list of 10.

I then come up with things like: my kidneys are working, I live in a stable democracy, the internet etc. Then you actually notice more things that you actually take for granted: it’s now late November and I am writing this in the evening whilst it’s dark outside. 100 years ago, I couldn’t do that. I can write this post and someone on the other side of the world (You) might read this, maybe years from today (posted 2018). How lucky are we to be alive right this minute.

It becomes a habit

As this becomes a habit, just like any habit, it becomes automatic. You find yourself being grateful all of the time, not just in your morning review. This is when the magic does start to happen. Remember our old friend the Reticular Activating System; guess what you’ve trained it to do? Like the faithful servant it is, it looks out for things for you to be grateful for.

Be grateful for everything good that comes

I walk our dog Rosie every day, sometimes twice a day. I often find money on the floor – mostly 1p, 2p, sometimes 5p. People have thrown this money away, probably because they don’t like having loose change in their pockets. I know this because it’s usually around a row of local shops near my house.
So I often wonder about these people and how their finances are. I wonder if they wish they had more money. Do they dream of winning the lottery? Perhaps they really desire money but they throw it away. This is not the same as giving it away, no, they are literally throwing money away. What kind of message does that send to the subconscious mind? I love money, but I hate it as well.

What do you think happens – nothing?

When I pick these pennies up, I wipe them off with a hankie and recite a little prayer of thanks.
‘Thank you for this sign – money comes to me in ever-increasing amounts in a good way. I am a money magnet. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’
Then I take it home and put it in a jar. After about a year, there’s enough to take to the coin exchange, for notes and then a nice meal out with the family!
Am I happy with my financial status? You bet. I am so grateful and blessed in so many ways, not just money. The more grateful I am, the more I get. Funny that.

Be grateful before you receive

When you start to become adept at manifesting things in your life, using the law of attraction, you become certain that things will come. It’s a bit like ordering books from Amazon. You place the order and a few days or maybe a week or so later, it arrives. You just know it will come. The law of attraction is the same. If you go through all the steps I describe in my book – Is the Law of Attraction Real and Does it Work?(Amazon Associates Link), eventually what you want will arrive. Just keep doing the work and you will be rewarded.
Just make a start, then keep starting over and over and over. Rest a while but do not quit.

When things go wrong

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit

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