Having a Grateful Mindset

 

The Grateful Soul

● What is the difference between someone who is full of joy? Has a zest for life and always seems to have a smile on their face? Compared to someone who is grumpy, grouchy and a total drain to be around?  I think we all know people of both dispositions! And who do we want to hang out with more, the person who has the Grateful Mindset!
● The primary factor is gratefulness. Gratefulness has the power to change any situation. More precisely, gratitude has the power to change the way we experience any situation. Being grateful may not change your circumstances, but it does change you.  And that makes all the difference.
● Gratitude has the power to change the very way we experience life. It can neutralize negative emotions and enable us to learn incredibly valuable lessons even in the midst of challenging circumstances. Several years ago, my husband ruptured his achilles prior to the start of our busy season.  To this day, I am grateful it happened because it taught both of us how to let go and stop being control freaks.
● With gratefulness comes great power. And the more you cultivate gratefulness, the more power you’ll experience in your life. If you implement what you learn here, you’ll be overflowing with thankfulness and joy each day.

What Is Gratefulness?

First and foremost, gratitude is a way of living. It is a state of being in which you open yourself up to receive good things. It is a posture of openness, receptiveness and willingness to receive things that are very good. Gratitude is not a one-time event where you simply say, “Thank you.” It’s an entire way of being in which you joyfully receive good things and give thanks for those good things.
It is a habit. It’s a perpetual way of life, almost like breathing. You take in something good and breathe out gratitude. Additionally, gratitude encompasses all things. Everything in life happens for a reason and in each circumstance, there are valuable things for us to learn. These valuable things help us advance in life, primarily in character.

Gratitude comes in all Forms

● Gratitude comes from the recognition that you have received something good. In other words, you didn’t create this thing yourself. Rather, it came from outside of you. From a friend. From the universe. Maybe even a complete stranger.
● Gratitude is distinctly different than earning something. When we work hard to create something, we can say that we earned it. Gratitude, on the other hand, comes when we receive something that we have not earned.
● Gratitude connects you to something larger than yourself. This is one of the great powers of gratitude. It takes us outside of ourselves and connects us to other people, nature and even a higher power.
● Gratitude is an affirmation of goodness. In other words, it’s recognizing that not only have we received something freely, but that thing we received is also very good. As a result, we are grateful.
● Gratefulness enables us to see just how many good things we have in our lives. On the flip side, when we’re not regularly grateful, we become discontent and unhappy with the way things are going.

The Opposite of Gratefulness is:

● Complaining
● Discontentment
● Envy
● Anger
● Frustration
● Thanklessness
● Unhappiness

The good news is that you can’t simultaneously be grateful and be in any of these negative states. You could say that gratefulness is exclusive. It expands and doesn’t make room for anything else.

The Power of Gratitude

● Gratitude is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. When you tap into the power of gratitude, incredible things begin to happen – things you never would’ve expected.
● Gratitude attracts good things into your life. The Law of Attraction says that you attract more of what you focus on. When you’re grateful, you are intentionally, purposefully and powerfully focused on good things. You’re focused on how thankful you are for the good things that have come into your life.
● Because you attract more of what you focus on, gratefulness results in you attracting more good things into your life. Being grateful puts you into a particular state of being in which you attract more of the very things that you’re grateful for.

On the other hand, if you’re constantly:
● Speaking negatively
● Complaining
● Envious of others
● Moaning about all the things you don’t have…….you’ll attract even more of that into your life.
● Gratitude leads to greater happiness. Numerous studies have shown that being grateful makes you happier overall.

The Grateful Life

Really, this shouldn’t surprise us. When we’re grateful, we’re focused on all the good things that are happening in our lives. We’re focused on positive things and not wasting our energy griping about the negative.
● Gratefulness produces a “loop” of happiness. We’re grateful → We feel happy →So we’re more grateful → We feel happier
● Gratefulness deepens relationships. When you thank others, they want to spend more time with you. After all, when someone thanks us, it makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we’ve helped someone out.
● Thankfulness is an exchange of positive energy between two people. Would you rather be around someone who is constantly putting out the positive energy of gratefulness or someone who is constantly stewing in how unhappy they are?
●When we’re grateful to others, it attracts them to us. They want to be around us and develop friendships with us. Gratefulness is magnetic.
● Gratefulness strengthens your health. Gratitude is not just a state of mind. It has real, direct, positive effects on your body as well. Specifically, being grateful makes you healthier in a number of ways.
When we’re grateful, we are actively putting out positive energy into the universe and one of the ways that positive energy returns to us is in the form of better health. On the flip side, when we’re constantly putting out negative energy through ungratefulness, we risk having more health problems.

 

Greater Optimism

Gratefulness results in greater optimism. When you’re grateful, you’re constantly focused on the blessings coming into your life. You’re preoccupied with all the good you have rather than the things that you don’t have.
● What you focus on expands. As you focus on being grateful for all that you have in your life, your sense of well-being also grows. You begin to develop the sense that good things are always coming your way, and you really do start attracting those good things.
● Gratefulness strengthens mental health. Gratitude has been shown to have a number of very specific mental health benefits, including reducing toxic emotions such as envy and regret, as well as minimizing depression. It has also been shown to decrease stress.
● When we’re grateful we don’t have much room for toxic emotions. You could say that gratefulness detoxes us from things like jealousy, regret, and anger.
● Gratefulness changes your personality for the better. There are significant amounts of evidence that gratefulness can significantly improve your personality.

Behavior Changes when you are Grateful

Here are just some of the ways your personality changes:
● You become more optimistic.
● You’re less focused on material things.
● You’re more spiritually connected.
● You’re less self-centered.
● You have greater self-esteem.
● You’re more emotionally resilient.
● You feel better on a consistent basis.
● You deal with fewer toxic emotions.
● You’re more relaxed.

Additionally, gratefulness leads to less materialism. It’s not necessarily wrong to want more. But if you’re constantly focused on what you don’t have, you’ll end up constantly feeling unhappy, ungrateful, and discontent. When you’re ungrateful, you lose much of your ability to enjoy life and you feel more negative emotions. On the flip side, when you’re grateful, you feel a sense of deep well-being. You’re content with what you have. You don’t constantly compare yourself to others. You are more inclined to be generous.
Furthermore, The more grateful you are, the more likely you are to work harder and produce more good things in your life, because you’re already optimistic about what your efforts will produce.
Gratefulness increases spirituality. Being grateful connects you to something bigger and greater than you.
What matters is that when you’re grateful, you’re saying, “Thank you,” to something that is bigger than you. When you’re more spiritual, you raise your overall energy levels so that you receive even more good things from the universe, which in turn, gives you even more reasons to be grateful.

Cultivating Gratefulness

Gratitude Journal

Keep a gratitude journal. Keeping a gratitude journal is a simple practice with profound effects. By regularly writing down things that you are grateful for, you keep yourself in a highly grateful state.
○ Try to write down at least five things you’re grateful for every single day. You could this first thing in the morning, at your lunch break, right before you go to bed or at any other time that’s convenient.
○ When you’re writing in your journal, avoid over complicating it. Write down anything and everything that you’re grateful for. Sometimes I write about the beautfi weather or the birds chirping. Nothing is off limits.
○ The goal with your gratitude journal is to develop the habit of noticing things you can be grateful for. You want to constantly notice the good things in your life, even if those things seem relatively small and insignificant.

Gratitude Affirmations

Recite gratitude affirmations. Gratitude affirmations work in two ways.
○ First, you affirm that you are grateful for things that you have already received. They help you count your blessings so that you’re not ungrateful or discontent.
○ Also, you affirm that you’re grateful for things you’re going to receive. By being grateful in advance, you allow yourself to receive things with open hands and you maintain a high state of gratitude.

There are always Reasons to be Grateful

Always find reasons to be grateful. In even the most challenging situations, you can almost always find something to be grateful for. This doesn’t mean that you paper over the situation and act like it isn’t hard. It simply means that you always look for the good in every situation. Whenever you find yourself confronting a challenge, ask yourself the following questions:

• What valuable lesson can I learn from this situation?
• What good thing can come out of this challenge?
• How can this difficulty actually make me a better person?

Once you’ve identified something good, be thankful for it. Give thanks that it’s making you a better, stronger, more compassionate, more thoughtful, more resilient person.

An Abundance Mindset

Develop an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset believes that we live in an abundant universe and that there is more than enough for everyone. A scarcity mindset believes that there’s not enough to go around. The more you develop an abundance mindset, the more you’ll be able to cultivate gratitude. You don’t have to worry about having enough. Or the fear running out. You can simply receive all that the universe wants to give you with gratefulness.

Live in the Moment

Additionally, live in the moment. Living in the moment means being aware of each moment every day and expressing gratitude for everything that comes your way. Remember that in each moment, everything is exactly as it should be and express gratitude during that moment. Don’t think about what you would rather be doing or where you would rather be. Rather, fill each moment with gratitude. Live in the moment and savor it.

Saying Thank You

Reflect, and regularly write thank you notes. In addition to constantly saying, “Thank you,” for everything you receive, get in the habit of writing thank you notes.  In addition to when you receive gifts, write notes to:
■ People who have inspired you
■ Those who have taught you
■ Friends who have helped you through tough times
■ Close friends whom you simply love

Furthermore, we tend to think about gratitude only when we receive big blessings, but if we really want to cultivate gratefulness in our lives, we must get in the habit of constantly saying, “Thank you.” Anytime you receive anything good, no matter how small, make a concerted effort to say, “Thank you,” to someone or to God. This will help you be constantly grateful.

Conclustion

In conclusion, it has taken me a long time to become consistent in my journey to be grateful.  I am grateful for all things big and small and know they would not be possible without God in my life.  Regardless of  your beliefs, whether in the Lord or just the Law of Attraction, being grateful is at the center of being happy.  Everyday I write 5 tings I am grateful for in my Gratitude Jounal.  And everyday I read a bible passage from Jesus Calling.  Whatever your beliefs, Having a Grateful Mindset will change your life!

 

 

 

 

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