It’s probably not every day that you hear this but, your foundation slab is looking good!
I can’t wait to help you start building upon it, so let’s get right to it.
It’s time to build the first room of your happy place - the Gratitude Room.
Happy people practice gratitude every day.
Gratitude is about focusing on what you have, not on what you don’t have.
You cannot have gratitude and be negative at the same time; they are two opposing forces.
Happy people practice gratitude every day.
When you choose to be grateful, you have somewhere else to go - a more positive place - a more stable place.
Happy people have what is called an abundance mindset. They are optimistic, believe there is enough for everyone, and enjoy learning and growing. They look for things to be grateful for - and find them!
Happy people capture and carry positive thoughts and images with them, and recall them regularly to remind themselves how grateful they are. If something makes them feel good, they find a way to store it, whether that’s in a journal, on a camera roll, or simply in their minds. When you revisit things that make you feel appreciative, it jumpstarts positive thoughts and feelings within you, and makes you want to share it!
That same curiosity keeps their focus on today, not what is yet to come. The ability to stay present in the moment creates a calmness that allows them to “go with the flow” and keep stress and anxiety from overtaking them. When you choose to be grateful for what you already have, your capacity for worrying about what may or may not happen diminishes.
However, when people are without gratitude, they are often negative and critical. This negativity not only gets directed outwardly towards others, but also inwardly towards themselves. Internally, it shows up as negative self-talk, worry, and anxiety. There is nothing that destroys your own success more than negative self-talk, because it’s hard to make things happen when you are constantly telling yourself it’s not going to work!
Happy people practice gratitude every day.
People who don’t practice gratitude have what is called a scarcity mindset. They believe that there is never enough. This behavior creates a victim mentality, which keeps them stuck where they are, and ultimately keeps many people from achieving their goals. It causes them to believe that opportunities aren’t out there. That is not true. When you look for opportunities, you find opportunities; when you have excuses, you find roadblocks. They are both out there. The one you seek is the one you will find.
So how do you develop an abundance mindset, even if you currently have a scarcity mindset? Here are three ways to make that shift starting today.
1. Pay attention!
Find things to appreciate all around you. Happy people not only look for and notice these things, but they write about them, take pictures of them, and think about them long after they are gone. Whether it’s in a journal, via a camera lens, or just in their minds, happy people choose to carry positive thoughts and images with them, and recall them regularly to remind themselves how grateful they are. You go where your attention goes!
2. Recognize that gratitude and complaining are both habits.
Like any other habits, some serve you while others can destroy you. Catch yourself being grateful. As you begin to train your brain to see the possibilities and the things you already have in your life, the more you will reinforce how that makes you feel. Happy people practice gratitude every day because it feels good. Also catch yourself being negative. The more aware you are of those negative thoughts, the more you can choose to get back to the present moment and shift to more positive thoughts. The more you make that shift a habit, the more your thoughts will lift you up instead of beat you up. You will become your biggest supporter instead of your biggest oppressor.
3. Choose to surround yourself with abundance-minded people.
Whenever you are taking steps to improve yourself, it’s important to look at the people you are choosing to be around. It’s not all about you. Your family, your friends, and your co-workers all have their own attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Take an honest look at the people in your life and make some decisions about who it makes sense to spend time with and who it makes sense to distance yourself from. Attitudes are contagious. Energy is contagious, whether that energy is positive or negative - it will rub off on you. If you hang out with a lot of scarcity-minded people, you will need to make some decisions. Being aware of how others impact you is an awareness that will pay dividends when it comes to your happiness.
Happy people practice gratitude every day.
When you choose gratitude, and it is a choice, you see the world in an entirely different way. You see possibilities instead of roadblocks, you feel more calm instead of more anxious, you understand that there is enough for everyone instead of acting in irrational ways and feeling like everything is a competition.
Like anything worth doing, gratitude starts with awareness; awareness of what you already have, awareness of the people in your life for whom you are already grateful, and the awareness that you can become what you want to become if you begin focusing on your own self-worth.
When you live your life from a place of abundance, you create more abundance. When you create more abundance, you not only make a positive impact on the world, but the value of your happy place increases.
That’s why happy people practice gratitude every day.
In my next post, I'll walk you through building the second room of your happy place, the Acts of Kindness room.