Well, for many of us here in the United States we just celebrated Thanksgiving. If you are anything like me, you are still recovering from the incredible feast of yesterday. It is truly one of my favorite times of the year. While many people are excited about the turkey, dressing, and all the trimmings, Thanksgiving is about much more than that for me. It is an opportunity to reflect, assess my life, and offer gratitude for my many blessings. I am not saying that you should not look forward to a big dinner and seeing all your loved ones. However, I am saying that we must embrace gratitude as a way of life and a state of being. I hope this piece will resonate with you and remind you of the power of gratitude.
- Never limit thanksgiving to a day. While we carve out the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving in the United States, I do not want you to think that Thanksgiving is simply limited to a day on a calendar. I discovered decades ago that Thanksgiving is a state of consciousness and a daily choice that must make in our lives. Honestly, if you are not intentional, we live in a world that will program you to be cynical and pessimistic. Cultivating gratitude is something that you have to intentionally do every single day of your life. When you have the opportunity to complain, I want you to make the choice to be grateful and to consider all the great blessings in your life. Thanksgiving is not about a day. Thanksgiving is about cultivating an attitude of gratitude.
- You must develop an attitude of gratitude. As a highly respected thought leader and influencer, I am often asked about the key to my success and the source of my joy. As many of you know, I am a person of faith and I am very proud of my faith. It is not something that I try and shove down anyone's throat. However, it is an anchor in my life and one of the keys to my success. If you have followed my work, then you know that my journey has not been easy. I have faced great adversity, failed many times, and have been criticized and mocked for being a dreamer. However, I am still standing and one of the reasons I am still standing is because I have developed an attitude of gratitude. In other words, I have not only allowed gratitude to influence my physiology. I have also allowed gratitude to influence my psychology. Your attitude deals with your belief system, paradigm, thought pattern, thought process, and psychological construct. Gratitude has to move from something that you believe theoretically to something that you practice thoughtfully. In other words, you have to allow gratitude to not just impact your belief system but also your behavior. We utter words about gratitude from our mouths but we often fail to model gratitude through our lives. Gratitude is something you have to demonstrate in the highs and lows of life. It is easy to be grateful when everything is going well in your life. However, it is much more difficult to be grateful when everything is falling apart. Yet those are the very moments that test your true character and serve as defining moments in your life.
- You must cultivate a gratitude practice. As some of you know, I have written about gratitude on some of the largest platforms in the world, My writing has been translated into multiple languages and I have heard personal stories from people all over the globe. What I have discovered is that we could all use a little more gratitude. In fact, gratitude has carried me through personal loss, tragedy, failure, disappointment and so much more. In those moments where life was the most difficult, I found myself leaning into the practice of gratitude. For more than twenty years, I have kept a gratitude journal. When I first started, it was very challenging to come up with a list of things that I was grateful for. However, as time progressed I found myself writing paragraphs about my life and all the things that I was grateful for. Gratitude profoundly changed me and everything about my life. It reminded me of how blessed I am, how much my life matters, and how much I have to give to be a blessing to others. Most of all, gratitude broke the complaining complex in my life and shifted my perspective about life. I want to challenge you to make gratitude a daily practice in your life. It is not enough to reflect one day a year on gratitude. Imagine what would happen if you took time every single day to reflect and express gratitude. I guarantee that cultivating a gratitude practice will produce tremendous growth in your life.
- You must awaken to the reality that gratitude is a state of being. As we have just lived through one of the most challenging periods in modern history, many of us have been faced with unusual circumstances and uncertain times. However, I always say that challenges are common to mankind. In other words, no matter your pedigree none of us are exempt from challenges. While we could attempt to avoid challenges, the reality is that avoiding challenges cripples growth and development in our lives. As someone that has been practicing gratitude for decades, I will not lie to you and tell you that my journey has been easy. In fact, my journey has been very difficult at times and I have had moments where I wanted to give up. What kept me going? One day I awakened to the reality that you may not be thankful for everything that is happening in your life. However, you can be thankful in the midst of everything that is happening in your life. In other words, you can choose to be grateful. Gratitude is a state of being that will ultimately shift the circumstances of your life. When you realize that gratitude is a state of being, your perspective about life shifts and you experience the peace that passes all understanding. You will realize that you may not have everything but you are blessed. As this holiday winds down and we head into Christmas, I want you to embrace gratitude as a state of being. In other words, make it a pillar that anchors everything about your life.
