What can you be grateful for?
You know that gratitude is a game changer but some days you feel like the gratitude is all the same and you wonder, am I missing something? People often make the mistake of looking for all the big things that you can be grateful for as opposed to all the millions of things that happen daily that make our life better, whether they appear to be good news at first or not. You can easily find yourself being grateful for the same things each day which doesn’t expand your appreciation for life but rather limits it. Here are some ideas of what you can be grateful for if you find yourself stuck in a rut.
You can be grateful for:
Good health. The human body does so many amazing things without us having to think about it. It largely operates on automatic, it fights infection for us, it makes us warm where we are cold through specific physiological processes, its very design is helping and protecting us at one (take the tonsils for example, they help fight infections before they go into your respiratory tract to help keep you safe or think about the heart- an organ that has 4 in built processes to keep you alive should any slight problem happen with the most used method of making your heart beat). What our body does for us is incredible, we often do not recognise nor appreciate it until we are unwell. Even pain in the body signals us to act to limit greater long term pain to ourselves. Remarkable!
Loving relationships. People who say hello, ask how you are, apologise for their mistakes, want to spend quality time with you and make you feel loved are such a blessing. Sometimes in the adult world your appreciation of others takes a backseat to what you need, what you are doing and how quickly you can get there you stop pausing to appreciate those who have supported you, kicked you up the butt when you need it and made you laugh.
A roof over your head and food on the table. In hard financial times people can often focus on what they don’t have instead of being appreciative for what they do. Think about it..when the purse strings are tight and you eat less quality food (for example) you then come to appreciate real, whole, natural food but when you have access to it often you don’t think about how lucky you are. Even in places in the world where you have little having something means a lot and focussing on it puts your mindset in a state of abundance to bring you more goodness. So why not be grateful for the simple things?
Opportunities for personal and professional growth. Often we have an idea of how we want our personal and professional life to go but it doesn’t work that way. Life happens for us in a way that will help us to learn more about ourselves and others. In every single thing that happens in our lives we have an opportunity to learn when we focus on growth, abundance, love and not lack. Getting lost on a commute might be frustrating but you can learn skills about yourself in the process and you’ll find if you are ever in a similar situation again you’ll be more resilient. Losing a loved one hurts like hell but every person that touches your life is there for a reason and you can probably uncover what they were silently teaching you by how they lived their life. Honestly there are so many opportunities all the time you can be grateful for, you simply need to ask yourself what’s the opportunity here? If you don’t know be grateful that there is one that perhaps you don’t know about just yet.
Nature and its beauty. Like the human body nature is amazing. If you just think about one piece of nature, trees, it’s amazing to think that their role helps us survive and our role determines their survival too. Nature teaches us so many things. In big ocean waves we learn about the power of the ocean, the importance of being respectful of nature and its capacity. In pavements grass pokes through and reminds us, ‘you only need one tiny little crack to breakthrough’. Nature teaches us so much about how to live life that we can be grateful for and boy does it provide!
Kindness and generosity of others. Do you know most people’s random acts of kindness are committed towards people they know? Yet throughout the day people open doors for them, wait at crossings, let them in the cue, stand up for strangers, let others take their park, compliment others on how good they look and even pays for peoples fuel, groceries, bills just because they care about others? There is so much generosity in the world. In fact if the global news stations actually started showing this it would easily overtake the morbid news we see everyday. Kindness is everywhere! If you’ve experienced it personally or watched it in action (eg how cute those people waited for the ducks to cross the road) then be grateful for it!
Memories of happy experiences. There are so many great memories you have, you even have fabulous memories with people who hurt you. Let the good memories exist, be grateful for those moments and observe where you can make more in your life in the process. Gratitude doesn’t have to be for what you have it can also be for what you can create.
Abilities and talents. Most people talk about what they cannot do as opposed to what they can. Write a list of all the abilities and talents you have, things you are good at, things that come naturally, things you worked hard for and succeeded at. Be appreciative of these things, it will also help to boost your esteem.
Moments of peace and stillness. In a busy life calm is bliss. Did you get calmness for 5 minutes today? Be grateful for it instead of saying ‘I only got 5 minutes to myself’.
The ability to learn and change. Change is often feared by people but it is the most beautiful way to learn about yourself. Sometimes you learn that you have traits you don’t like, you aren’t good at certain things but you also learn how you handle this new knowledge and how attitude impacts your gratitude. Learning is one thing that can never be taken away from you, not by anyone or anything this is why it’s so powerful to appreciate the lessons in life. Do it!
Gratitude is a powerful emotion that enhances wellbeing and improves relationships. It is scientifically proven to increase happiness by 85% so if you are struggling to find things to be grateful for its worthwhile looking a little harder and what, whom and where you are in your life to gain a beautiful shift in perspective.
