Practicing gratitude can affect every aspect of your life. Think about it, sometimes, one simple affirmative action can change so much in life. Gratitude has power. Once, you recognize the power of gratitude and start a regular gratitude practice in your life, you will notice a tremendous change.
Discover a few powerful ways that gratitude will change your life:
Gratitude Shifts Your Focus
Whatever we focus on, we move towards. When we live in a state of lack and negativity, we see more of that. It’s easy to see something in a negative light when you’re focused on that. It’s easy to see all the problems and dilemmas surrounding a situation when your thinking is habitually geared towards that.
In turn, it’s also easy to see things in a positive light, even when problems arise. If you’ve ever met an always-positive person, you know just how true this statement is. Even when something goes wrong, they look for the silver-lining in the situation. If they can’t find one, they simply state that something good will eventually come out of whatever they’re going through.
Transforms Your Relationships
While we tend to think about recognition from the perspective of the person who receives the positive reinforcement, it’s just as important to look at that moment of recognition through the lens of the giver, a perspective that deserves much more attention.
While it is always important to talk out your problems with your employees (or even friends or significant other), criticizing them all the time will quickly deteriorate your relationship. Instead, when you find yourself feeling the urge to criticize them, stop and take a deep breath. Start to think about all the reasons you are grateful for your people, then share your gratitude with them as soon as possible. Showing your gratitude will help to make your relationships stronger.
Improve Quality of Life
From your mental health and wellness, to your emotional fortitude, spiritual aptitude, and your physical strength can all be derived from the simple and basic behavior of gratitude. Gratitude can change your life by quite literally improving the quality of it. You’re the sum of all your parts, and it’s gratitude that can help to benefit each of those small parts.
Studies have uniquely linked gratitude with satisfaction of life and it’s no secret that people who are grateful for things are far more sated in their lives. There’s a sound stability that exists when you can appreciate the importance of things in your life, no matter what shape, size or form factor they might take on.
Improves Your People Skills
Gratitude can improve our personal relationships. Grateful and positive people are magnetic, and other people want to be around them. Gratitude helps us feel more positive emotions; we become more empathetic, optimistic, compassionate and kind.
Helps You Deal With Hardships
When you suffer a tragedy, turning your mind to things you are grateful for. Facing disasters in your life can be crippling if you let them overcome you. While you still want to grieve, you can also take away something even more significant from the tragedy, the gratitude for the life you have. Love for the people you have in your life, and appreciation for the fleeting beauty of life. Take the opportunity to show appreciation for those in your life and enjoy your life while you can.
Helps you reach your goals
I believe wholeheartedly in the art of goal setting. When you set goals the right way, you can quite literally achieve anything you put your mind to. Not overnight, or in a few weeks or months, but in years of consistent and persistent action. And one of the ways that gratitude can change your life is by emboldening you to reach for those goals.
Gratitude helps you to succeed by first creating a platform of internal success. As long as your happy, healthy and sound in your mind, body and spirit, you can reach for your goals without too much external distraction. But, when you lack these things because you’re unhappy with your current state of affairs, you live in that state of negativity and lack, and it’s harder to push forward.
When you’re so focused on things that are wrong with your life, how can you possibly push tirelessly towards goals that are potentially years away from becoming a reality? You can’t. In fact, what tends to happen is that we get distracted, waste time, and engage in pursuits that hinder us rather than help us.
Enhances your faith
Gratitude can transform your life by strengthening and enhancing your faith.
There’s a deep-rooted appreciation for things that arise for those that are grateful. In fact, it becomes baked into the very fabric of their being. In turn, it strengthens their faith and belief in all things. For me, it’s my belief in God and the realization that I am truly and completely grateful for everything in my life, including all my problems. It takes work to say “Silencio Bruno” and keep my negative Nancy at bay. #IYKYK
Gratitude transforms your faith by instilling the belief that you’re not alone and that whatever it is that you’re going through, it will pass, and on the other end you’ll emerge victorious. You’ll accomplish your goals, overcome your obstacles, and become a better person, one who’s more sympathetic and even empathetic to the plight of others.
Finding ways to incorporate gratitude into your life will change it for the better. Discover our ‘5 Exercises To Help You Cultivate Gratitude’ on the AO Journal.
While the holiday’s are a great opportunity to acknowledge and remember the proven benefits of gratitude, remember that the power of gratitude is too important to be celebrated on just one day. When people lift one another with acknowledgment and recognition–when giving and receiving gratitude is the foundation of a culture–we’re all elevated, we’re all able to blossom into the best versions of ourselves, and one person’s success becomes everyone’s.
