Does life happen to you or for you?

Does life happen to you or for you?

When you are in the middle of it. It seems like life is happening to you.  

You can’t catch a break?  You often find yourself saying…  What else could possibly go wrong?  Lol  Then it happens…  The Else appears…

Over the last year or 3.  I’ve been accepting that what I believe may not be what I should believe.

As an adult, I’ve only had a few jobs.  I spent most of my time self employed.  I use that word specifically because I was not a business owner even though I thought I was.

I thought I was doing things right.  I also felt I was missing something.  I felt there was a secret out there I was unaware of.

The secret came out around that time.  It was interesting and has some merit but it wasn’t everything.  

I will not profess to have all the answers but I know I’m getting closer.  

The one thing I know is when I opened myself up to Gratitude.  I started having a new perspective on life.  It was slow at the beginning, subtle, and almost felt like working to have gratitude did not change much.

The truth is I had already started before this sort of thing and didn’t know it.

I had a team and I had read. Starting the meeting with good news helps keep the meeting productive and positive.

So during our weekly meetings, each person had to provide good news either business or personal.  Nothing else was discussed until everyone added something.

In the beginning, this took up most of our meeting time.  Not because people had so much good news to share but because it was a struggle for people to identify something good that happened in the last week.

I was truly surprised at how hard it was for people to think of one good thing that has happened in the last 7 days.  I did too at the beginning.  But I made it a point to make note of things that were mentionable during the good news segment.  I was the leader after all and had to lead by example.  I had enough, that I would allow some to borrow mine at the beginning.

We finally got the hang of it but it took longer than one might think.  As we became accustomed to it.  When a new person joins the team, you can see the anguish in their face during their first few meetings having to find something good to report.  It was a look we all recognized and we met it with grace because we had all been there.

My point in telling that story is that the practice of gratitude is hard at first but so worth the effort.

I make it a practice at the end of each day to find 3 good things that happened in my journal.  Now I do not journal every day.  You can say I journal probably 300 days a year.  I’ve been doing this for a year and some days are harder than others but it is always possible.

I even find that how I interact with people has also changed.  Applying gratitude in your life, increases your ability to have grace with others.

With this practice of gratitude, It is now easier for me to see how things are working for me instead of against me.

I hope this helps…

Until next time…