Research has shown that an awareness of the good things in your life has a significant positive effect on your emotional well-being.
Hardly an earth-shattering finding since this is what most people would have predicted anyway based on what they have observed in their daily lives. That is, most of us have noticed that people who see the glass as half full tend to cope better psychologically and physically than people who see the glass as half empty.
Gratitude is a powerful way to shift our attention from the negative to the positive things in our lives. To quote the English poet William Blake (1757-1827): ”The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
Many of you would have heard me suggest that you write down three things either daily, weekly or – at the very least – monthly that you’re thankful for. However, I suspect most of you don’t do it either because you don’t really believe that it will make a difference, or because you have convinced yourself that you don’t have time or perhaps because you believe that you have nothing to be grateful for.
Wrong…
The other day, I came across the “Grateful in April” initiative, which was founded by a Melbourne-based motivational speaker. You can go to www.gratefulinapril.com to check out several blogs as well as exercises to increase you sense of gratitude. My favourite exercise is to make a list of 100 things you are grateful for. It is very hard to stay dissatisfied when faced black on white with that many good things.
So what are you waiting for? Get started – I’m already on number 86….