Are you happy? What will it take for you to be truly happy? If you’re like many people you’re waiting for something to happen or someone to come into your life or something to change before you can be really happy and enjoy your life. Most people are constantly putting off really living their lives until things are just right, or until something happens.
Things like, if I could just be making more money, or if I could just lose weight, or if I could just get the job that I want, or the partner I want, or if my spouse would just be as I want him/her to be, then I’d be happy. The bad news is, you’ll be waiting a long, long time. Before you know it, life will have passed you by and you’ll be wondering what happened to your life. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Some of you may even be at that point now, wondering what happened to your life.
It’s a trap many people fall into and once in, they find it difficult to know how to get out. There’s no really easy answer to this of course, no one thing that you can do that will make everything perfect. But there are things that you can do to change things, to start being truly happy, and one of those things is gratitude.
Before you dismiss this as too simple, not transformative enough or just something you’ve heard before, stop for a moment and think about it. When you’re constantly waiting for something to happen before you can really live your life and be happy, what you’re saying is that you’re not happy now. What you have is not good enough, you want something different. Example: “I don’t like my body, but when I lose 50lbs then I’ll like it, and then I can start doing the things I want to do.” When we are constantly dissatisfied with what we have in life then the only thing that will happen is that we’ll attract more situations into our life to be unhappy or dissatisfied with.
It’s hard to think that something so deceptively simple as gratitude can have any impact at all, let alone profound change, but I assure you it can. Try it, what have you got to lose? Start now by thinking of what you can be grateful for. If you make a point of doing this every day, you’ll not only start to appreciate yourself and your life more, I guarantee you that you’ll start attracting more positive people and situations into your life.
I know that sometimes it’s difficult to think of something to be grateful for. Don’t worry if you’re finding it difficult, just start. It’s best if you can get a journal to write in, because then whenever you do struggle to think of something, writing in your journal can be a good reminder. This can be your gratitude journal. Is your life really so bad that you can’t think of anything? You hate your job – what about the fact that you have a job. You don’t have a job – what about the fact that you can walk, use your hands, have eyes to see, are able to work and look for work. You can be grateful that you got out of bed this morning. Grateful that you have a television to watch, hot water for your shower, food to eat. Start being grateful for the people in your life, your family, your friends, your co-workers, the person who delivers your mail or picks up the trash.
Try looking at every situation that you feel frustrated or angry about and see what you can find to be grateful for. You’re stuck in traffic – be grateful that you have a car, that you can listen to music or educational CD’s in your car. Your computer’s not working – be grateful that you have a computer and know how to use it. The electricity bill arrives and you don’t have enough money to pay it – be grateful to the electric company for providing you with the electricity, be grateful for the money you do have.
When you start to do this, to think in this way and to actively look for things to be grateful for, you really will find that you start to feel better. It’s so much better to think this way than to constantly be thinking about what you don’t have or what you don’t like. It changes your energy, it will help you feel calmer and less stressed, and then the wonderful thing is that you’ll start to find that things do change for the better. Not because you’re trying to make them happen out of dissatisfaction with the way things are, but because you’re focusing on the abundance that you already have, which allows more to flow to you and you’re in the perfect stat energetically to receive it.
Go ahead, try it See what a difference it can make to you. Just one more simple thing that can make a very big difference.
“Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.”
- Brother David Steindl-Rast
Linda Binns shows you how to be more successful in all areas of your life by working with your environment. Sign up for her free 9-step E-course at HarmoniousLifeChoices.com.
Linda Binns is author of Feng Shui for Your Relationships: Changing Your Environment to Create Better Relationships. She has been a Feng Shui Practitioner, Author, Speaker and teacher for over 10 years. She has appeared internationally on television and radio and in local publications. Linda is also the founder of The Feng Shui Success Institute – which teaches in-depth Feng Shui training and practitioner certification.