Practice Gratitude

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. —Zig Ziglar

 

Today we want to say THANK YOU to all our readers. In our wildest dreams, we never expected to achieve best seller status within the first six months after the release of Remember Who YOU Are! That’s due to each of you, so we humbly say thanks.

Our gratitude also makes us aware of all the opportunities we have to say thanks, but too often we’re in too big of a hurry to do so. Regretfully, sometimes we’re so busy we don’t even recognize all of the things in our lives that we need to celebrate! When’s the last time you thanked somebody for how they’ve helped you?

Let’s look at a few things that have helped us over the years.

 

Look for blessings throughout the day.

Practicing gratitude requires us to be intentional – to notice what’s going on around us. Large or small. Be aware. If we are looking for things to be thankful for, we will find them…and if we aren’t, then we won’t. It’s not because we don’t have things to be thankful for – they are there. We just don’t notice them. We generally see what we look for.  How often do we thank the driver in front of us – when they were driving slowly and keeping us from a potential wreck yards away?  They may have saved our life.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” —Robert Brault

 

Learn to change our perspectives.

Let our glasses be half full. It’s human nature for many of us to see the glass as half empty, at least from time-to-time. But changing our perspective does wonders for how we perceive and how we are perceived. We think the following story best illustrates our point.

Decades ago, Matthew Henry was traveling on horseback to be the guest speaker, when an armed robber appeared. Here’s his recap of being robbed:

Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.

– Matthew Henry

Wow!  That’s a different perspective from our normal, right?

 

Express your gratitude.

Maybe it’s a verbal thank you; or a written note – an email thank you is better than not thanking somebody

y. We keep a little stash of thank you notes on hand – and try each month (or two) to thank someone for something they’ve done for us.  Often, it might be for something done recently, while other times, the notes are to people who’ve helped to shape our careers…or perhaps those who gave us great parenting advice way back when. Regardless of the reason, just take the time to let them know you appreciate them.

You can also say thanks with flowers – or even better yet, with dark chocolate. We have dark chocolate waiting for the next time we see you – to show our thanks for your support along this journey. Thanks again, friends!