A Gratitude Diary Can Change Your Life!

It is a tool/technique to change your mindset from one where you take things for granted, or are complaining and feeling like a victim, to one where you are empowered and happy.

It is simply a diary you keep everyday, where you list things or people in your life to be grateful for.

When you are in the Gratitude mindset, you will recognise lots of things to be grateful for.

These can include everyday things you take for granted (Examples - enjoying the sunshine, having a hot shower, sleeping in a comfortable bed, are all pleasures that most of us don't appreciate anymore), as well as all the new 'goodies' you are attracting to yourself.

Last week, in 3 days, for example, a friend took myself, my partner and my son to dinner - and paid for all of us. The next night, I was given tickets to dinner and a show by another friend. AND I entered a competition to win tickets to see a show, and - you guessed it, I won them.

The spiralling effect of gratitude is awesome - the more you appreciate, the more you get!

1. Every day, write down 5 things you are grateful for. It can be anything - feeling the sunshine on your face, happy that a friend phoned, receiving a present, being able to take a walk, anything. Work out a time to do this. Ideally, around the same time every day works best.

2. Make a commitment to yourself that you will write down 5 things every day - this is very important.

4. The 5 things MUST be DIFFERENT each time. Never repeat anything. NEVER REPEAT ANYTHING!

5. Smile as you write them down. This will help you to feel grateful.

6. You can write a lot about each thing, get really detailed, write why you are grateful for it. Or if you don't have time, just write one line.

The first day you'll be thinking hard about what you're grateful for. You will find them, though.

The second day, knowing you must find 5 new things to write down, you'll start to look for things to be grateful for.

As the days go by, you'll experience a shift in your attitude. You'll begin to expect things to happen to be grateful for.

As more days pass, there will be another shift. You'll start to recognize when things happen to be grateful for.

Another shift will take place when you start to feel grateful at the time the event takes place.

This is when the miracle of gratitude will really start happening for you.

From experience, I would say that this process will take about one month. Keep it going for at least this length of time and you will see changes start to happen in your life.

Don't stop the gratitude diary at this point, no matter how good things are going. Never stop!

Thinking ungrateful thoughts and taking things and people around you for granted, will bring you more things to be ungrateful for. And you will become, or continue to be, an ungrateful person.

This is easily reversed by starting a Gratitude Diary. For people who complain a lot, finding things to be grateful for will be difficult at first. A little perseverance over a month or so, for 5 minutes each day will turn that attitude around, and miracles will start to occur in life.

GROW.
RELEASE.
APPRECIATE.
THANK.
INSPIRE.
TREASURE.
UNDERSTAND.
DELIGHT.
EXPECT.

We all hate that time of month where we sit down and pay all our bills, watching the bank account go down, or the credit card go up.

Like attracts like, so when you feel awful paying bills, you'll attract more of that.

So here's a simple way to turn that around next time you pay a bill :

Before you pay it, sit down and write out all the good things that this product or service did or is doing for you. What did it enable you to do? What would have happened if you didn't have it?
Did it help you to achieve something? What did you learn? Are there benefits for the future ?

Smile while you're writing, and you'll soon start feeling grateful for this product or service.

An example is your electricity bill. I'm always grateful when I pay it, because electricity enables me to cook, to play CDs, to have long hot showers, read at night, watch TV, cool or warm the house, keep my food fresh, use my computer and make a living. WOW! Where would I be without it?

Now that you're feeling grateful or amazed, now pay it. If writing a cheque, add a smiley face to it. If paying online, say "thank you".