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Article Series: Gratitude & Gratefulness
The Importance Of Gratitude In Your Life
How
To Be Grateful - Even For 1 Day
Has adopting an attitude of gratitude been
a challenge for you? Do you start each day with the best of
intentions and then find yourself losing focus as you encounter
more and more negativity?
The problem stems from trying to change the habits of a lifetime
in one fell swoop!
If you've spent a large portion of your life not focusing
on gratitude, you can't expect yourself to change your whole
mind-set immediately. (Most of us always try though, don't
we?)
But can you do it for one day? Can
you commit to adopting a grateful focus no matter what
happens during the course of
one single day? You'd be surprised how easy it is to do something
for one day.
Here's how to start:
First, select a trigger object to keep with you on the day
of your gratitude experiment. It can be a special piece of
jewelry, a rubber band around your wrist, a special baseball
cap, your lucky shirt, or anything else you feel would help
you remember.
On the morning of your "one day of gratitude",
spend a few moments holding your reminder object. Bring up
a feeling
of gratitude in your heart while you do. When you are fully
immersed in the emotion of gratitude, recite an intention something
like this:
"Today I choose to feel grateful for every
experience I have. I will find a positive focus for every
challenge I
face, every moment of frustration, and every person I meet.
I will make a conscious effort to stay rooted in the present
moment so I am aware of the temptation to slip from this grateful
focus and I can bring my thoughts and emotions back on track
immediately. This (object) will serve as a powerful reminder
that I can choose to be grateful about anything and everything
today, and I will exercise this freedom of choice during my
one day of gratitude."
Put on your trigger object, and then go about your day.
Don't fool yourself into believing that your day will be smooth
sailing just because you performed your little gratitude ceremony!
(You didn't really think it was going to be THAT easy, did
you?) Anything is possible of course, but it's more likely
that you'll find your patience and focus being tested repeatedly
throughout the day.
Believe it or not, that's a good thing! The more opportunities
you are given to choose and strengthen your focus, the better
you'll get at developing a true attitude of gratitude. Go with
it. If you find yourself getting mired in anger or frustration,
simply return your focus back to gratitude again. Make it your
mission to find something positive about every situation and
keep working on turning your thoughts around as often as necessary.
By the end of the day you should be feeling very proud of
yourself! Even if you didn't manage to keep a steady focus
on gratitude, you were probably able to focus on it more than
you have in the past.
Now, lather, rinse and repeat! Keep doing this exercise one
day at a time, over and over again. Before long you will find
that you don't have to work so hard at staying focused on gratitude,
and it starts becoming more natural.
As author Annie Dillard once said, "How
we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
Start with one day, and everything can change. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
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