Today’s guest post is by Luke Goodwin

GRATITUDE

For me, this is one of the most powerful things that can influence every single area of your life and something that has completely transformed my way of thinking and also the way I conduct myself.

Each day, I utilise something called ‘The Miracle Morning’ and within this I have added in an exercise called ‘priming’ by the one and only Tony Robbins. Priming is something that has completely opened my mind, allows me to channel my thoughts, create energy and positivity. While I am doing this priming exercise, which lasts for 14 minutes, there is a part of it that focuses on gratitude, and I cannot put a measurement on how much this has affected me. I didn’t drastically notice immediate changes, but they were happening daily, just really small minor changes in my thinking, but over time, when I look back at my journal entries and how I used to conduct myself, I have realised how much, just spending a small amount of time being grateful, has impacted my life. It allows you to see yourself, other people and the world in a completely different light. It allows you to see solutions and not problems, it allows you to see obstacles as a way of improving not failing and it allows you to enjoy life, complain less, and be positive.

I used to be one of those people that would moan about 5 minutes of traffic, moan that someone didn’t arrive on time, moan about a lot of things, and I wondered why my life wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to go in, and that was due to my thought process and way of thinking. I was very negative, thought I was unlucky, and made bad decisions. Now all of those have completely flipped. I now think positively, generate amazing results, think clearly, work efficiently and have so much more energy.

I urge everyone, to practice being grateful, because then it will become an automatic process in your mind. Imagine this, if you are genuinely grateful to have a family, kids, partner, job, LIFE, do you think you would complain about half of the things you currently complain about? Don’t get me wrong, I am not perfect, I still huff and puff now and again, but this has dramatically reduced since taking the time out to be grateful. I used to allow myself to get wound up when my kids misbehaved, which occasionally I still do, after all, we are human. But when I spent every single day being grateful that I am able to be a father, getting wound up over silly things reduced. I used to allow myself to let setbacks and obstacles completely swallow and drown me, and change my thinking into negativity, but when I spent every day being grateful that I have a life, and being grateful that I can even experience these challenges because they are developing my attributes and personality, I now see setbacks and obstacles as strengthening by character and giving me room for improvement. I used to moan that I had a bad day in business, and that I didn’t earn enough money, but when I spent each day feeling grateful for the fact that I am self employed and don’t have to commute, answer to a boss or line someone else’s pockets, it made me see those bad days as development. I am not criticising anyone that is employed here, I am merely stating the fact that for me, those were fundamental reasons why I made the decision to be an entrepreneur.

Each day, I would recommend taking time out to practice being grateful, it WILL transform your life. You could try the Tony Robbins priming exercise like I do, if not, simply take 5 minutes out of your day, go somewhere quiet with no distractions and completely zone in on what you are grateful for. This does take practice, and it takes commitment and consistency, it doesn’t happen overnight. For me, at first, I allowed other thoughts to enter my head whilst I was thinking about what I am grateful for, and my mind wondered, but over time, I became better and better and now I can completely zone in and be focus 100% on being grateful. When you do spend time being grateful, don’t worry about what you are thinking about, it could be something huge or it could be something really small, what matters is, how does it make you feel? Sometimes, I think about holding my little boy’s hand when I drop him off at nursery, or cuddling my daughter when I get back from the gym, but for me, it makes me smile when I think about these things. Now, I have spent so much time being grateful for things, I can think about broader things such as being grateful for having a life, and that the possibility for me even existing is so small, I am very very fortunate to even be here, living on this earth today. I sometimes imagine myself hovering above the earth, looking down on it and being blown away at how stunning it looks, and that underneath the atmosphere, are so many amazing miracles to be cherished. That somewhere on that earth is me, living an life. I am extremely grateful for that.

I wanted to keep this fairly short, because I think sometimes, things can be over complicated when it doesn’t need to be, and ultimately being grateful is a very simple thing in essence, but it does need to be done consistently in order for it to influence your life. I would love for people to read this, take my advice and get in touch with me and let me know how it has influenced you, no matter how big or small. I take great joy in providing content and value to people, and if it only affects one person, it genuinely makes me happy.

Feel free to link up with me on Facebook, I would love to hear your feedback.

https://www.facebook.com/luke.goodwin.142