For many people, gratitude is a pure outright thank you. For others a half-hearted thank you text or card may seal the deal. But in psychology, it’s is not just an offhand action. Gratitude is a positive emotion that goes a long way in contributing to happiness and our general emotional well-being. The recognition entails more than feeling thankful for an act of kindness or condition because it consists of a deeper appreciation for someone or something. It affirms the graciousness of the giver. When we focus more on the many blessings in our lives, we are more contented, cheerful and generous. The great thing about this is that the feeling goes both ways.
The giver derives immense joy from the act, and the receiver appreciates the kindness. A definite win-win for all concerned and this highlights why we should all be a little more grateful and pass the benefits forward. Imagine how amazing you and those around you would feel with a bit more gratitude in their lives!
In a fast-paced world like ours, it is not unusual for daily blessings to go unnoticed. We often overlook the little acts of kindness we experience every day. Small acts of kindness shown daily culminate into a happier life. Whether receiving or giving gratitude, scientific studies prove that the result is immense happiness; such an amazing reward from such a small gesture.
So, what benefits can you expect from being more grateful? Well, here are 4 for starters:
Gratitude increases optimism, and optimism has been proven to boost the immune system. According to a study by Harvard Medical school, those who are optimistic live happier, healthier, longer lives. This just makes sense when you think about it; feeling well emotionally has a direct effect on our physical health so anything that we can do to make ourselves feel better emotionally is well worth it!
Saying thank you may constitute good manners, but showing appreciation may help you create new friendships, as well as live a happier life. A 2014 study discovered that thanking an acquaintance for a kindness more often than not makes them seek a deeper relationship with you. It doesn’t matter how small the kindness. Simply acknowledging little deeds leads to new relationship opportunities, and of course, more happiness. And who doesn’t want more happiness in their life?
Counting your blessings goes a long way in loving yourself without undue comparison. According to a study, a one-time act of thoughtful appreciation produced a 10% increase in happiness and 35% reduction in depression. This is especially important in today’s high-speed, highly stressful world so take a few minutes each day to slow down and feel grateful for who you are and what you have, and what you have to look forward to. Your blood pressure will thank you for it!
As an entrepreneur or a team player, gratefulness is non-negotiable. Everyone loves to be appreciated. So think of the world of good it would do your business if you showed more gratitude in your life. Send a thank you email or card. Say thanks when someone goes out of their way to make your life and business easier. Showing gratitude to workers, clients and investors makes you all happier and will give your business the needed boost because everyone you deal with will feel appreciated.
Cultivating and sustaining an attitude of gratitude goes a long way in helping you achieve happiness since there is virtually no downside to this simple act. Though it may seem tasking at first, it becomes easy with persistence.
Start practicing gratitude today, right now and I promise you, it will make you feel better about yourself and those around you. And you will also have a positive impact on those around you and you will attract more like-minded people towards you which will only help to reinforce the positivity you are now experiencing in your life. There’s no time to waste so start right now.
So many people are whizzing around that they don’t take the time to reflect on where they are, where they have come from and what they have. They live in the present and tend to experience a feeling of lack. Using self-reflection and gratitude can change all that. To cultivate an attitude of gratitude, we have to take time from our busy day and remember to give thanks for all the blessings that keep coming our way on a daily basis. Gratitude keeps us focused on what we have rather than all the things we don’t have, which keeps us in a victim mentality.
We may not realize that gratitude is a choice and that it doesn’t come easily to many of us. Most of us were taught as children to say “thank you” when someone gave us a present or did something nice for us. But after a while, “thank you” can become quite glib unless we learn ways to cultivate the attitude of gratitude. Practicing gratitude is also a skill which is never too late to develop.
Here are some things to keep in mind to develop an attitude of gratitude:
When you are grateful for the things that you have and express gratitude, it takes it to another level and opens the door to feeling optimistic. Optimism is a skill that can be cultivated and one of the ways to develop it is to think, feel, and express gratitude both for the small and the big things that take place in your life.
An important way to apply the Law of Attraction is to raise your vibration by acknowledging and giving thanks for what you have or experience.
A grateful heart begins by reflecting and contemplating on all the wonderful things around you. It has to do with a state of being and has to be cultivated by self-reflection. It comes by considering how life has supported you. Things as simple as listening to the birds sing or enjoying the taste of a homegrown tomato can be cause for celebration when you focus on having a grateful heart.
A simple way to remember to express gratitude is by reflecting on gratitude quotes. As we contemplate on the truth of these powerful sayings by people from all walks of life, they help us make a subtle shift in the way we perceive life and enable us to concentrate on the positive things, rather than the negative.
If you want to use gratitude in your life, try pairing it with some self-reflection and it becomes even more powerful. To learn more about self-reflection click here to download a free report
Have you ever read articles about how people like Oprah or Tony Robbins start their day? They claim the practice of gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to change your life, and they are living proof. Keeping a gratitude journal is an excellent way to start noticing and counting your blessings. It’s simple, yet powerful.
But there’s no need to stop there!
There are many ways to add the practice of gratitude into your life so that you stay focused on appreciating all the amazing things you have in your life. Here are a few simple ways to add more feelings of gratitude in your life, starting now.
Practice not complaining—when you start to notice how often you complain, you’ll be amazed! One day a week, practice not complaining, but rather reframe everything to put a positive, grateful spin on it. And mean it! This will take some practice because we are all good at complaining but this is well worth it and by doing so you may open your eyes to more of the negativity around you of which you may have been unaware. You can then choose to either remove those sources of negativity from your life (sometimes easier said than done) or to consciously ignore them.
Try bringing gratitude into your life and see the huge difference it can make to your general emotional well-being. You will feel so much better about your life and this will give you the confidence to strive for more (this may be business/career as well as personal). Do it for 30 days and you will become hooked, I can virtually guarantee it!
As a successful entrepreneur or business person, you probably know exactly what you want and how to get it. You are driven, determined and a self-starter. So if you have all these great qualities, why would you need a coach?
The personal benefits of coaching are as wide-ranging as the individuals involved. Many clients report that coaching has positively impacted their careers as well as their lives in many ways. Here are ten of the many ways that having a coach will benefit you.
This is especially important for introverted entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who run online businesses as it’s easy to become enmeshed in your own business world. A business coach will push you to step outside your comfort zone, meet new people and try new things in your business. Even extroverted entrepreneurs can get caught in ruts and a business coach will push you out of them and force you to take action to strive towards your goals.
When you decide to become an entrepreneur, you start with great dreams and aspirations of growing a business, hoping to achieve great things. As the months and sometimes even the years go by, you start realizing that your business is yet to become what you had initially envisioned, and you have yet to implement all the ambitious action plans you once thought of. You may start seeing that you are so caught up in the day-to-day running of the business that you find little time to think and plan a strategy. Working with a coach will help you raise your head from the day-to-day business race and look at the bigger picture. Your coach will get you to start thinking about the future, where do you see yourself and your business, and get you to act on this vision by developing a winning strategy that you can execute with confidence.
The one aspect that a coach brings that group sessions or mentors do not, is a keen awareness of your entire business and way of being. There are few times when someone is going to focus just on you for an entire hour, probing you about something that happened last quarter, an employee issue you had three weeks ago or your style of leadership. By being totally focused on you, a good coach can show you the way and when you take the necessary action you will become far more self reliant when running your business, and your confidence will soar and you are on an upwards success spiral.
Professional coaching maximizes potential and, therefore, unlocks latent sources of productivity. To be successful and to get to a point where you haven’t been before, you need to do something you haven’t done before. And this is really what separates real successful entrepreneurs from mediocre ones. A good coach will not only motivate and encourage you, he/she will point out the things you are good at but most importantly he/she will point out the things that you are not exceeding in and you need to improve. We all have blind spots and often the more successful we are, the harder it becomes to highlight and accept our shortcomings. Identifying blind spots means that you get to work on areas of yourself you haven’t addressed before, which will result in becoming more productive and more aware about you need to do to lead a more fulfilling life.
Building the self-confidence of employees to face challenges is critical in meeting organizational demands and you will get much more done if the people around you are positive and uplifting, rather than negative people who are always complaining and wear you down.
A coach will not only push you and challenge you to do and achieve your best, but will also hold you accountable for your actions. An experienced coach is able to detect when you are lying to yourself and when you are sugarcoating existing realities in order to avoid the pain of taking action.
This leads to –
Coaching generates learning and clarity for forward action with a commitment to measurable outcomes.The vast majority of companies (86%) say they at least made their investment back.
Finding ways to do tasks more quickly and efficiently and understanding that is a process worth investing your time in is an important skill and this includes working well with others and, perhaps more importantly, being able to delegate tasks to others (especially when you may feel like it would be easier to do it yourself). You need to think about the bigger picture, the long-term results of investing the time to train and delegate tasks to others.
Whether you are a solopreneur or you have a team around you, there will always be certain things that you may not be able to share with those around you for a number of reasons. In a coaching relationship, you can share your concerns with the coach, knowing that you are in a confidential setting; your coach is always your biggest advocate and wants you to succeed in whatever you set out to.
This is an important, but often overlooked benefit, especially in the corporate world but is just as important for a company as an individual. Take this for example; managers frequently have to deal with employees struggling with low confidence. The traditional approach would be to send them to an assertiveness course and hope this addresses the issue. In the short-term, the employee learns new strategies for communicating which may improve confidence. Unfortunately, in isolation these courses rarely produce a sustained increase in confidence. Although external behavior may change; it needs to be supported by changes in their internal thought processes. This is often where coaching is most effective and it can be tailored to the individuals needs.
Okay, there you have it. Ten top ways that coaching can benefit you.
Do you have the knowledge and expertise in your niche that would enable you to become a coach? There is no greater feeling than helping others to succeed. If you would like to learn more about how you can start your own coaching program/business, take a look at Mentoring Magic here: warr.us/atgmen1
