Gratitude Today

Do you find gratitude difficult to maintain? You get up each morning and tell yourself that you will keep your positive focus and be grateful for everything that happens. As the day goes on, however, these good intentions just sort of run out of steam as you deal with negative people and situations. The good news is that you can accomplish this with practice. Part of the difficulty in maintaining an attitude of gratitude is that you are trying to change a lifetime of negative thinking.

If you have spent most of your life focusing on the negative, go a little easy on yourself and do not try to change your thinking at all once. We all try to do that when we set good intentions. It does take practice and here is a good place to start: do it for today. For just one day, make a commitment that you are going to maintain a positive focus and be grateful no matter what happens. Most people can do something for a single day.

To really start to change your thinking for today, find a focus object that will remind you throughout the day of your intentions. It can be anything, maybe a favorite watch, a photo that you set on your desk, whatever helps. On the day that you have chosen for this change of attitude, concentrate for a few minutes on your chosen focus object. Choose to feel the gratitude that you know is in your heart. Once you have that feeling and are absorbed in it, state your intentions for the day out loud. It does not have to be long or elaborate or a presidential speech. "Just for today, I am grateful for everything that happens. Every challenge will present something positive. When negative thoughts happen, I will use my focus object as a reminder that gratitude is my choice. I choose gratitude today."

Now, don't think for a minute that everything is going to be all sugar and spice just because you set an intention. It is not that easy, but it is not impossible. Your patience will be stretched and you will lose focus, probably more than a few times. There is good news though. The more often you have to CHOOSE gratitude, the stronger your focus will be! Every time you make the choice, you will be developing true gratitude. Determine that you absolutely will find a positive side to every negative situation. Turn your thoughts to gratitude at every opportunity. When that first day is over, you are going to be very pleased with yourself. Perhaps you didn't always maintain your focus on gratitude, but you certainly were able to focus on gratitude more than you have before.

Now that the first day is done, simply repeat. By doing this a day at a time, you will soon notice that it gets easier to keep your focus. As it gets easier, it will get to be more natural until eventually it becomes a part of you. Amazingly, with starting on just one day, you can change the entire rest of your life.