The Power of Gratitude

This week marks the beginning of my favorite time of year: a time to purposefully re-set my focus on gratitude and giving. No matter how my life or my business looks in any one moment, I know for certain there’s always something to be grateful for — the insane luxury of a warm, safe house, a fridge full of healthy food, the presence and faithful love of a good partner.

Even when I’m struggling, I’ve found that the surest way back to flow is intentionally focusing on what’s working and how fortunate I am in that very moment of struggle. It’s counter-intuitive in many ways, but it’s been shown over and over again to work: when we set our sights on goodness, we nurture goodness and create a spiritual and emotional soil where more good things can grow.

The word grateful is one that holds a lot of richness for me. It’s not just a nice word — it’s a powerful word. It’s not just a feeling — it’s a way of being. Being grateful expresses an emotion, yes — being thankful for all that’s been given to us — but it also implies “the readiness to manifest that feeling by action,” even a long time after a favor has been done for us [Century Dictionary].  So by practicing gratitude, we are setting the radiant intention to demonstrate with our whole lives that we are spilling over with abundance and ready to share with others — and that creates more abundance, more gratitude, more of all that’s good. How amazing is that?

Napoleon Hill, in his famous book Think And Grow Rich, shows how powerful our line of focus can be. Canadian counselor Michele Crawford sums it up like this:

“[A] metaphor for focusing is the light on a coal miner’s helmet. Wherever it shines becomes most significant and the rest doesn’t matter as much. You make a choice on what you want to make important in your life by paying attention to it and letting other things fall into the background…If you “shine your light” on negativity, negativity will be everywhere. Conversely, if you chose to focus your light/attention on an optimistic view of events, encouragement and benefit will be everywhere. Your choice of focus, either positive or negative, is directed towards your surroundings. Then feedback from your surroundings is created as an accurate reflection of your attitude.”

So whatever you focus on grows BIGGER, and then reflects back, influencing your experiences, health, relationships and wellbeing. To those who truly embrace these notions with an open heart and mind, there often appears to be concrete evidence of reward.”

As entrepreneurs, there are days and weeks (and sometimes months!) where stress is high and payoffs feel uncertain. When you’re working so hard, setbacks can be massively discouraging. It can be hard not to get mired in the negative.

My challenge to you as we enter this season is simple, and is filled with my confidence in you and your good work:

When you’re tempted to fret over the feeling that you have too few clients, turn your light and focus on the clients you DO have.

When revenue feels sluggish and you feel stress rising, turn your light and focus on the revenue you DO have flowing in right now.

When it feels like things are moving too slowly, turn your light on all the progress you’ve made and all the ground you’ve covered in this past year.

When you’re tempted to be hard on yourself for one reason or another, to become your own worst critic, turn your light and focus on all the ways in which you’ve grown.

When you feel stuck, turn your light on the choices you have and the ways in which you can take action to get unstuck.

Start feeding what’s good, and just see what happens. And just imagine what our lives, our businesses, our relationships, and our world could look like if we adopted gratitude as a way of being, as a spiritual commitment to the action of creating and sharing abundance. That’s some powerful stuff.

I appreciate you, and I’m so excited for the year to come.

Love & Success,

Heidi and Your Marketing Team

P.S.  I want to hear from you!  What do you need to make next year your BEST year yet?  Please take 3 minutes to tell me in the comments below.  If you’re not sure, tell me the first things that come to mind (even if they are completely crazy and unrealistic!) 

There is value in asking your subconscious that question and then writing out the first things that come to mind.  Magic starts to happen.  Don’t believe me?  Give it try in the comments below.