There’s one thing you can do to transform your life, business and health and it can be summed up in one word :
gratitude
Hear me out! It seems simple (and rather ‘woo-woo’) but this is seriously a practice we can lean on to ensure our success. It’s difficult to build something good with a negative state of mind. We have to believe in ourselves, The good news though is that we don’t have to naturally be this way.
The attitude of gratitude is something we cultivate through intentional practices.
Just like we do sport to train & tone our bodies, we have exercises to train our minds to focus on the good. It’s easy to forget the power of the mind when things aren’t going well. We fall back into despair, like we fall back into a bag of potato chips when we’re trying to clean up our diet.
As a business owner, things don’t always go as planned and we have to have a hell of a lot of self-esteem and belief to keep putting ourselves ‘out there’. Right? This is especially true when you’re a coach and YOU are your business! This is why it’s so important to have a strong practice of gratitude and recommit to it daily. This builds faith.
In all the interviews I’ve conducted already for the Healthy and Powerfully Feminine Interview Series, the one thing that all the female entrepreneurs have in common is a daily practice of gratitude.
Without this, it’s too easy to slip into lack thinking. We start wondering, ‘What if it doesn’t happen?’ … ‘What will I do if I don’t make any sales this month?’ We start planning for failure rather than visualizing our success.
In The Science of getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles explains,
The moment you permit your mind to dwell with dissatisfaction upon things as they are, you begin to lose ground… to permit your mind to dwell on the inferior is to become inferior & to surround yourself with inferior things…. To fix your attention on the best is to surround yourself with the best & to become the best.’
The key word in this quote is ‘permit’…. you permit your mind…. you allow certain thoughts to prosper.
Thoughts are not real or true just because they appear in your mind. We get to choose what we focus on and what we allow to grow there.
It’s easier to to undertake daily gratitude practices than to try to not be negative, just as it’s easier to include activities that promote relaxation rather than try not to be stressed.
So here are 5 ways to cultivate an attitude of gratitude & positivity that will bring you success in life & business :
1. Train your mind.
You could simply write 5 things you’re grateful for like Oprah (Oprah knows), or start with a prayer of thanks. I like to write down five feel good moments from the day before or I’ll just write ‘Thank you for…’ and let myself get carried away with that. This practice can take as little as five minutes and you don’t even have to write it down. You could just go through it in your mind while having your shower or driving to or from work, but it really is better if you make some time for yourself to sit and contemplate how awesome your life already is.
2. Praise people
Think about how much you’d get on with your partner if you were grateful for all they did (telling them daily) rather pointing out all the cracks in their perfection. Same goes for your V/A or other employees. Really, who doesn’t love to receive genuine praise? It makes you want to keep doing the same. Gratitude truly has such a power to transform.
3. Re-enforce daily
Reading about how awesome gratitude is is likely to get you feeling like jumping on the G-train. Read or listen daily to that which will get your mind focused on a higher state of consciousness. Make your mind strong & resilient against the lack thoughts that come a-knocking. And don’t concern yourself with those around you who may be non-believers. The only non-believer to worry about converting is you.
4. Instagram it
All I see over Instagram are people being grateful for those tiny moments in life that are beautiful. Look at your life with the eyes of an artist. See the beauty. The vibrancy of your salad, the way your coffee is served, pink flowers on your morning walk and the way the last splashes of sunlight appear on the mountain when the town is already in shadow. Instagramming your life really means appreciating every last drop of beauty in your world. That friendly waiter, that man’s eyes, the way the elderly couple are holding hands, the bus driver who slows so that you make it to the bus stop, that woman’s style and her too long hair. You don’t even have to Instagram it but let your head be turned by life!
5. Celebrate
So often we focus on what we haven’t done or done right and how it could’ve been. Instead, let’s be thankful for each and every person who signs up to our site (ahem, right here!) or to our Healthy and Powerfully Feminine Interview Series (winky wink. Do it!), and for the post we did write rather than the two solo mailers that we didn’t (exhibit A is what you’re reading).
Celebrate what you have done and that which is coming to you. Celebrate with your coach, the one who believes in you and sees the bigger picture. Be in a community where you can celebrate each others’ success!
Don’t wait for a really really special occasion, do it now. Celebrate.
Our power comes from the gentle-essence of a joyful heart.
A grateful heart is a joyful heart.
There’s no time but now.
So tell me in the comments below – What are you celebrating today? What are you insanely grateful for?
