Motivational
Be Grateful
The world today is full of uncertainties and challenges, and the last thing that we want to do is to do something as simple as say “thank you.” With the hardships, turmoil, difficulties and problems that people are facing these days, it has become increasingly difficult to see the good side of the world we live in. And listening to all the negativity in the news and media just reinforces this bleak view of modern day life. But this is an incredibly skewed version of reality and bears no real resemblance to the real world, but hey, bad news sells!
Things appear to have become so irrational and unpredictable. The world has changed so much and become so different, and being grateful in this (apparently) very ungrateful world can be really challenging. And the quicker things change, the more disconnected people start to feel.
Also, the sad fact is that many people in this generation have an “entitlement” attitude; they believe that they are entitled to pretty much anything with little to no effort. This may not be a politically correct statement but is the plain truth (in my opinion).
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
The thing that we all need to remember is that although the world seems so difficult and things may not always go the way we want them to go, there are still many things to be grateful for. No matter what good things happen in your life, if you don’t have an attitude of gratitude, you will never be completely happy. It is simply a matter of focus; in fact, focus can be used to support many aspects of your life, not just gratitude.
Learning to be grateful when things go wrong, when problems strike or when difficulties happen will make a huge difference in your life and the way you will generally feel about life itself. Life is always better once you feel blessed no matter how difficult things might seem. Is it easy? No, but is it worth it? You bet it is!
Feeling grateful allows you to see life as a great and wonderful gift. Once you can feel great about the world and about your life, you will be able to find real happiness and peace.
When everything around you seems to be going wrong, it is can be very difficult to feel grateful for anything, but if you remain thankful about even those little blessings you have, your life will become happier. Learning to be grateful in this ungrateful world is something worth doing. If you don’t, you will keep feeling a sense of unhappiness, a lack of self-worth and a general lack and that is no way to go through life.
After all, you only have one life so you owe it to yourself to do everything you can to enjoy it and to experience everything that it has to offer. Living with an attitude of gratitude will help you to do that.
Start practicing gratitude daily and see what a difference it can make. Start off gradually; why not spend a few minutes in the morning when you first wake to think of all the things in your life that you are grateful for? Why not write these things down and start a gratitude journal. Try doing this for 30 days and see how this small thing done daily can make you feel and how your outlook on life will shift. You will become more content, happier and people will notice and wonder what your secret is. Share it with them and let’s all make the world a happier, more grateful place in our own small way.
Start today and allow gratitude into your life and reap the benefits. What are you waiting for?
Science Proves That Gratitude Can Make You Happy!
Science Proves That Gratitude Can Make You Happy!
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.
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
So, what benefits can you expect from being more grateful? Well, here are 4 for starters:
Better Health
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!
New Relationships
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?
Less Depression
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!
Business Health
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.
There’s Never Been A More Important Time To Practice Gratitude
How to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude
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:
Express 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.
The Law of Attraction and Gratitude
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.
When you are in a state of gratitude, you are resonating and sending out a frequency of acceptance and harmony, and as a result, you resonate at a much higher vibrational frequency. This frequency is what attracts to you the events, conditions, and circumstances that you desire.
A Grateful Heart
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.
Gratitude Quotes
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
Simple Ways to Add Gratitude into your Daily Life
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.
- Compliment a stranger—how many times have you admired someone’s haircut or blouse, but not complimented them on it? Start today!
- Let someone ahead of you in line—remember how it feels when you have one item, and all the people in front of you have a shopping cart full? Guess what? Everyone feels that way. The next time you get the opportunity, let that person go in front of you.
- Avoid negative media—it’s tough to stay focused on all the goodness around you when you allow all the negative news in the world to play in front of you every day. Find positive TV, movies and other media to watch instead.
- Cherish your friends—when was the last time you told your BFF how much you appreciate them being in your life? Not because of anything they’ve done, but just for loving and supporting you throughout your life’s journey.
- Listen deeply—so often, when we listen to someone talk we are rehearsing what we want to say next. Notice how often you do that and practice listening intently to the person, even if they are telling you about something that doesn’t interest you.
- Go outside and relish—most of us don’t get out into nature as much as we should. And that’s a shame because we miss out on so many wonders! Take time to go outside more. Go to the park and listen to the kids squeal with delight. Watch a hummingbird at your neighbor’s feeder. Enjoy the beauty of the natural world.
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!
5 Ways To Boost Inner Strength
There’s hardly a person alive who would tell you that life is anything but busy – and sometimes tough. You can be pulled in so many directions at once it can be easy to get stretched thin.
No matter how old you are, you’ll encounter trying situations at home, at work, among your friends and family and even with strangers. Everything you go through taps into your inner strength and can drain it little by little.
You can’t do anything about what you experience simply because it’s part of life. But what you can do is to find ways to boost your inner strength so that you have the calm that you need to deal with whatever comes your way.
There are several tools that you can use to help boost your ability from an internal mindset perspective – so that regardless of what you face, you can have a life of calm.
Exercise to Gain Inner Strength
One of the easiest tools that you have at your disposal to use when you need to boost your mental strength is physical exercise. Exercise does so much more than give your muscles strength and help keep your weight under control.
Exercise is necessary to strengthen you emotionally – and one of the reasons for this is because it can calm stress. It’s a well known fact that stress is one of the leading causes for turmoil, loss of peace and mentally draining.
When you experience a loss of inner strength, you’ll feel tired, mentally sluggish and unable to concentrate. What’s going on is that the things you’re dealing with in life (even if they’re not necessarily horrible things) are chipping away at your inner strength.
What you go through in life will hit you internally long before it hits you outwardly. In other words, you’ll feel the stress first. You’ll fee anxious and restless and then you’ll exhibit physical symptoms like insomnia, headaches, stomachaches and more.
What exercise does is cause you to produce a greater supply of endorphins. Not only do these chemicals take care of stress, but they work to boost your supply of inner strength.
You’ll feel calmer and ready to handle whatever it is that you need to take care of. There are some exercises that are better for boosting your inner strength than others.
When you exercise vigorously – such as with aerobic exercise – you’ll find that you have more inner strength. This is because the faster paced exercise works to raise the endorphin levels, but at the same time, it drives down the stress level, gives you more confidence and a more positive attitude.
When you take part in a regular exercise routine, you’ll find that your store of inner strength increases and has a beneficial boost to your mental abilities. The key to using exercise to boost your inner strength is making sure that you find something that you enjoy doing.
If you don’t, you’ll only feel the added stress of doing something that you don’t want to do and you’ll be dealing with the negative emotions associated with that, instead of healing.
Check out this additional audio segment discussing how everybody has their strengths:
How Mantras Boost Your Inner Strength
If you’re not sure what a mantra is, it’s a sound or a word that’s used to help people focus when they’re meditating. There are many reasons that you want to use mantras.
They can help you deflect the thoughts and attitudes that can drain your inner strength. When you practice a mantra, you’ll notice that you have a more positive outlook toward whatever it is that you’re dealing with.
You’ll also discover that learning a mantra can set you free from stress and anxiety. The words that you use in a mantra or the sounds that you’ll use can vary depending on what you choose to do.
There can be particular mantras, too – based on what you’re searching for. Some people will use a basic Om sound as their mantra while others will use specific mantras that translate into requests for healing or blessings or other things that they want to focus on.
Mantras are a way of tapping into your inner strength and finding the balance that you need to restore the draining energy. When you have a mantra, you can use it to help you focus during the times that you feel uncertain or nervous.
You can use it to calm your fears and to help you find your center so that you remain in control. Studies have shown that people who use mantras to help boost their inner strength are often more successful in all areas of their lives than people who don’t.
You’ll experience clarity and a mental focus that others won’t have. Not only will you be able to boost your inner strength on a regular basis, but during a time of crisis when you really need your mental alertness.
Mantras help you be aware of what’s going on around you as well as within you. They can guide you to help lift you above the situation and to keep your perspective.
This will help you to see situations as solvable and as a moment in time rather than as something that can’t be overcome. When you practice with a mantra, it will teach you to be more confident in your abilities and can raise your self-esteem.
You’ll be able to find the positives even in the negative situations you might have to deal with. By using a mantra, you’ll be able to have a way to relax at any moment throughout the day.
This can help bring your emotions back into focus. People who practice mantras are also often more compassionate and slower to get angry. This level headedness is a wonderful trait to have in terms of keeping you emotionally sound.
Check out this additional audio segment discussing how strengths are developed:
Affirmations Are a Tool for Boosting Inner Strength
Some people think that affirmations and mantras are one in the same, but they’re not. Rather than being a single word or a sound, an affirmation is made up of complete sentences.
These sentences are designed to delve deep into the subconscious mind to refill the well of inner strength. When people practice these sentences, they’re keys that can help the user see what it is that restores them.
When the affirmations are practiced, the subconscious mind recognizes them. Behavior changes takes place based on how the person then decides to live his or her life.
Affirmations influence the people who use them by causing them to react to pleasant or unpleasant situations with a happier outlook. When affirmations are practiced, it allows the person to replenish the inner strength rather than taking from it.
When you connect with the power of the subconscious mind, you can change your life. What the affirmations do first is affect the way that you think. The way that you think about things will be followed by the way that you act.
So if you’re someone who has a situation in your life that has always robbed you of confidence or affected your self-esteem, practicing affirmations can help you change the way that you react because it changes your thought processes.
You’ll be able to break free of the type of thinking that keeps you stuck. Affirmations give you a positive outlook on life, which in turn leads you to feeling happier and more vibrant.
The positivity adds to your inner strength rather than taking from it. You don’t have to carve out huge blocks of time to be able to practice affirmations. You can say them throughout the day to unleash their positive power.
When you first begin to use affirmations, you might encounter some self-resistance because it can be a struggle to change the way that you’ve always thought about things.
But you can press on and use affirmations to help you until it becomes second nature for you. You can use different affirmations depending on what type of inner strength you need to boost.
For example, if you’re struggling in the area of self-doubt and you feel like a failure in what you try to do, then you need to use an affirmation that supports your success.
For that type of affirmation, you would say something like “I can achieve success” or “Success is drawn to me.” Don’t put it in the future by using words like, “I will succeed.”
If you were struggling with feeling sad or not happy with your life, you would use affirmations that affirmed happiness. You would repeat a sentence such as “Happiness dwells within me” or “Happiness is drawn to me.”
You wouldn’t say, “I will become happier.” You want to keep it in the present. By using affirmations to change your subconscious, you can boost the level of your inner strength.
Check out this additional audio segment discussing how to tease out and nurture your strengths:
Using Yoga to Boost Inner Strength
Finding a way to boost your inner strength is a lot easier than you might think. One of the ways that you can do this is by practicing yoga. Yoga is a spiritual practice that uses breathing and postures in meditation and relaxation.
It teaches people how to gain inner strength and get rid of stress. You can use it to help you retain a sense of peace. By working to build up a person’s body and mind strength, it works to boost the inner strength.
You might be living your life and feel that you’re doing what you supposed to do but there are times throughout the day when you simply feel so mentally and emotionally drained, it’s hard to muddle through.
Or you might reach the end of the day and feel as if you gave your all to the point where you have nothing left to give – including to yourself. This will quickly drain your inner strength and if you don’t boost it back, you’ll end up experiencing things like fatigue and emotional and physical upsets.
Yoga is a tool that you can use to influence yourself toward being a positive person and positive people are more successful. The reason is because people who have inner strength have a confidence that others don’t often have.
Practicing yoga makes you feel a greater sense of self because when you take part in the poses, your body releases endorphins that affect your mood and give you a boost.
When you practice yoga on a consistent basis, you’ll notice that you feel better physically and emotionally. The benefit of yoga is that it can be practiced anywhere – including at the office.
When you feel that mental and emotional drain and you know that your inner strength needs a boost, you can use yoga to give you back your energy and clarity.
You’ll feel better about yourself and your abilities. There are different types of yoga that you can use. But some of them are better suited for boosting inner strength than others.
There is Ashtanga, Bikram, Iyenga, Vinyasa and Hatha. Of these, Hatha is more often used for the purpose of boosting inner strength because it has the ability to restore balance to the body.
Check out this additional audio segment discussing the value of playing to your strengths:
Finding the Right Self-Help Books to Boost Inner Strength
A great tool that you can use to boost your inner strength is a self-help book. You can find a wide selection of them at retail and online stores that are written specifically to guide you toward greater inner strength.
One of the ways that these books can help you is that they teach you the link that self-esteem has with your actions. When you have lower self-esteem, you also have a lack of confidence in your ability as a person.
This lack of confidence bleeds over into how you perform at work and how well you do in your relationships with other people. When you struggle with your inner strength, it can make you feel less happy than you deserve to feel.
By using a self-help book, you can have the power that you need to reach the best level of inner strength. These books will help you be able to pinpoint how you’re sabotaging yourself in different areas of your life and draining your well of inner strength.
You’ll learn about actions that you’re doing that create a well of negativity and keep you trapped in an ongoing cycle of strength drain. When you gain the inner strength balance that you need, you’ll be able to overcome a lack of self-esteem.
You’ll discover that you feel more confident in your relationships and with your job. You’ll also learn to recognize situations and people in your life that act as drains on your attitude – and how you can deal with these individuals.
A self help book can show you how to restore your inner strength through the use of different techniques that teach calmness and restoration. You’ll be able to view things with a clarity that you didn’t have before.
You’ll learn exactly what inner strength is and the issues that can occur in life that can affect your strength. You’ll learn the negative and positive influences that are around and within you that you need either avoid or cultivate.
By using self help books that show you how to boost your inner strength, you’ll gain a stronger sense of self that will lead you to develop a life of accomplishments and happiness that are well within your reach.
Check out this additional audio segment discussing the top ways to identify your strengths: