19. This is a wonderful day. I've never seen it before

There are a number of angles people take on gratitude, especially when you start down a path of ‘self-development’. I mean… its EVERYWHERE! You seemingly can’t do anything to better yourself if you’re not grateful for what you already have – so it feels like a pretty big concept to get your head around. It’s one of those ‘must have’ things… and that makes sense to me. Partly because my middle class upbringing in Scotland was rooted in remembering your manners… always saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ – so at the most basic level the idea of vocalising and being mindful of my ‘thank you’s’ fits with my ingrained character. But also, there seems to be an overflow of inspiring and prominent people who openly swear by the significant role gratitude has played in their lives. Celebrities like Oprah and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson speak about how they are ‘grounded’ in gratitude... that it is an anchor for them. In a world where their immeasurable levels of fame and influence could easily distort their perspective, they say it is gratitude that keeps them on the right path. More significantly, people like Nelson Mandela, despite incredible hardships, approached life with an unwavering gratitude and willingness to forgive. The Dalai Lama, arguably the most enlightened person on the planet, is all about gratitude and appreciation… so that seals it… gratitude is key. If ‘The Rock’ didn’t convince you then surely the Dalai Lama can?

So ok, now I get it… I need to be grateful. Not just on the surface, in a “I’m so lucky, I have this and that, blah blah blah” kind of way. No, that’s not it. I need to BE grateful… feel it at my core… I need to live it. I need to see the positive take away from every situation and be grateful for every experience – good and bad. That’s not to say I have to be happy all the time, of course I don’t, but rather I need to be able to see the ‘silver lining’ even in my lowest moments. So even when times are tough, or my anger is trying to rise to the surface… I should be grateful for the opportunity to practice patience and love. Sounds simple enough, huh?

If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll be able to recall a time where a situation or circumstance filled you with dread at the mere thought of it. Something you just avoided dealing with… paralysed by anxiety. Maybe you just ignored its existence because the thought of it was uncomfortable? Maybe it was a credit card debt… or a speech you had to make? Whatever it was, it caused you distress. But, eventually, out of this distress came the realisation that sooner or later you were going to have to deal with it. Through the pain of this uncomfortable situation you had to find some ‘grit’ and ‘resolve’ and finally take action to address the situation – you created a plan to pay back your debt… you wrote, practiced and delivered your speech. In the end, you overcame something that had previously seemed overwhelming… you rose to the challenge. Can you now express gratitude for the pain and suffering that forced you to act? Afterall, without those negative feelings you wouldn’t have taken action… you wouldn’t have overcome the dreaded issue and ultimately ‘grown’ as a person. In a nutshell, it was negative feelings that helped you realise that ‘you can do hard things’… and so while it seems counter intuitive, should you not be grateful for those feelings of dread too?

Somehow knowing this… being fully on board and now jumping off the plane with my gratitude parachute – and having a life - which should not be that hard to be grateful for – I still find myself struggling to feel gratitude at the level I need to. What’s going on? Sure, there are things I’d like to change, but in the grand scheme of things there can be no doubt I am very fortunate to have the opportunities I’ve had, and the lack of significant obstacles in my way. I mean, my mind knows it should be grateful… it knows how lucky I am. I don’t take my life for granted, yet the simple act of writing a gratitude list throws up some troubling issues – I simply can’t think of things I am grateful for?!

For clarity, a gratitude list is simply when you free write anything and everything you can think of that you are grateful for. Don’t overthink it, just let the pen flow and see what comes out. Well, that’s the idea. You can be thankful for anything, your health, a cup of coffee… anything. The possibilities are endless.

So, why doesn’t my pen flow?... why is my brain stuck? There must be hundreds of things I could write… if only my mind could think of them!

After my first month of almost daily attempts to write just 10 things I am grateful for I was still struggling. The same ideas kept coming up repeatedly… the big things like – ‘I am grateful for my family, my house, food on the table…’ you know, the obvious, undeniable fortunes I have. But what about all the little things? The nuances in my life… why can’t my mind focus on them? I have made a lot of progress on this but have a long way still to go. That said, it remains a more onerous task than it should be, which is only amplified by the ease with which some people seem to address this. Whenever I’ve said to someone - ‘tell me 10 things you are grateful for right now?’, they are often able to rattle of at least 8 before they appear to even have to think. Like they already had a list at the forefront of their mind, and where already living in awareness of their gratitude. But wait… I’m grateful for those things too!... Why didn’t I think of those? Why is it that my gratitude seems buried? I know it’s there, because I know deep down I really do believe I’m lucky to have all that I do, but for some reason it’s hiding under my sense of ‘lack’… or ‘overwhelm’… or ‘frustration’… it’s not where I need it… it’s not at the forefront of my consciousness.

Thinking about it has helped me explain some other aspects I have been dealing with – my general lack of optimism, and my ability to get wound up by situations quickly and disproportionately. I mean, if I’m not consciously feeling the good in any given situation… if I’m not able to see the positive take away because my mind is so focused on the negative and what’s missing, and my sense of gratitude so buried… then of course I’m not full of optimism… of course I’m going to get angry when things go wrong. Afterall, I’m not seeing or experiencing the gratitude that might help balance out my negative feelings and emotions.

In my last post ‘Be Intentional’ I talked about scarcity and abundant mindsets, and how I have always had a scarcity approach to most aspects of my life. Well, gratitude is another example. By trying to write a gratitude list I am not simply writing a list… no, for me, and a lot of people I’m sure, it’s also about shifting my mindset into a place of ‘abundance’ – which is not so easily done. This just highlights how important it is to continue to focus on gratitude, as it is part of a larger shift I need to make from scarcity to abundance. As one life coach put it -

Where you focus is where you put your energy. If you ask your brain to find something, it will find it. So, if you go out looking for anxiety… you’ll find it. You’ll see all sorts of evidence why ‘life is terrible’ or ‘your kids are a mess’… plenty of reasons to freak out. Conversely, if you shift your mindset to look for reasons to be grateful… you’ll find them too. It’s a much more rewarding search, and over time it becomes easier, as your mind gets used to looking for positive reinforcement. In a nutshell, if you ask your brain a question, it’s pretty good at coming up with an answer… so make sure you are asking the right questions… positive, reaffirming questions that provide solutions, and most importantly that allow you to feel grateful.

I think the unfortunate truth is that if you can’t find a way to break the cycle of scarcity, and live from a place of gratitude then you’re really going to struggle with all aspects of self-development and personal growth. Without gratitude, and the ability to look for the positives in your life and focus on them, it will be hard to not let the negativity of the daily grind overwhelm you. You might find your energy is low, your motivation waning. It will be harder to pick yourself up at those inevitable low points you’ll encounter along the way. You won’t find the joy in the small things you experience daily… which are sometimes all you need to turn your day around. They are all still there, you just need to learn how to look for them.

My new approach to help me focus on gratitude, as well as my more generic list of things I am grateful for I do most mornings, is to take 5 minutes every night to reflect on my day and write down 3 things I am grateful for that particular day. The idea is to revisit those moments and see if I can generate the same feeling of positivity I’d experienced at the time by thought and memory alone. This will undoubtedly throw up it’s own issues, but it’s a journey, right? It’s not supposed to be easy… if it was, I would have done it years ago.

It’s such a fundamental, and I only wish I had thought about it sooner. But it’s not too late, and especially not for my girls. It’s become a big part of what we’re trying to instil in them… the importance of looking after your body, the importance of looking after you mind, and now – gratitude.

For me it’s just the start. I’m working on becoming the best version of myself (have I mentioned that?)… the ‘me’ I want for my future, and gratitude is a huge part of that. Not only because the future me wants to be fully aware of and appreciate openly all aspects of my life, but also because a big part of getting there is about feeling that gratitude ahead of time. You have to feel like you are already that ‘future you’… think like them, act like them. Ask yourself how ‘they’ would deal with the challenging situations that arise… the ones that usually trigger the negative personality traits you actively want to change. Essentially, you need to re-wire your brain to become that person ahead of time, and a big part of that is being able to feel gratitude for things that have not yet happened. That is where I’m ultimately aiming.