How Gratitude Can Change Your Life!

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”

Thanking others, thanking ourselves, Mother Nature, or the Almighty – gratitude in any form can enlighten the mind and make us feel happier. It has a healing effect on us.

What Is Gratitude?

Be thankful for what you have; you will end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. – Oprah Winfrey

Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.

In a scientific research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

How Gratitude Works!

“Enjoy the little things. For one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Robert Brault

Gratitude in all forms is associated with happiness. Whether we say ‘thank you to someone or receive the same from others, the feeling it brings is that of pure satisfaction and encouragement. Expressions of gratitude help in building and sustaining long term relationships, deal with adversities and bounce back from them with strength and motivation.

It’s easy to be ungrateful these days, isn’t it? It’s easy to want things that we don’t have. In fact, it’s stitched into the very fabric of our society. Consumerism is baked right in. Everywhere we turn, we’re reminded of the fact of how little we do have rather than how much we have to be grateful for.

In a society that’s governed by the haves versus the have-nots, where money and fame are all-powerful and helps symbolise the attractive facets of life like freedom, security and power, it’s easy to be ungrateful. When you’re working tirelessly to no avail, unable to get ahead in life, especially after experiencing the heartache of failure or financial turmoil, it’s simple to get disillusioned and it’s easy to not be grateful.

If you find yourself in that situation right now, fear not, we’ve all been there. Yet, there are ways we can become grateful for the things we have in our lives. In fact, gratitude is quite possibly the most direct pathway to success. The problem? Most people attach their happiness and gratitude on achievement rather than making it a platform for such.

Recently I have been asking myself this question:

“Why is it so important to have gratitude in life?”

What I’ve come to realize is that no matter the state or quality of our lives, whatever outcomes we’ve produced, goals we’ve reached (or failed to reach), what decisions we’ve made, and where we’ve ended up, has almost everything to do with our focus. While some things might be out of our control, much of what happens based on our thoughts, emotions and behaviours, are largely a conditional response to our focus and where it is directed.

That’s also why it’s so important to be grateful no matter what’s happening in your life. Even if you’re going through turmoil, and even if your entire world is crashing down around you, you have to be grateful. While it might sound strange, gratitude is the surest pathway to both success and happiness.

How Gratitude Can Change Your Life?

Every morning when I wake up, which is almost always at some point between 4 and 5 in the morning, the first thing that I do is to sit down to write out my gratitude list, I realize just how much I do have to be grateful for.

There are things that we all take for granted — almost like given truths in our lives. Whether it’s the roof over our heads, the food on our plates or the clothes on our backs, it’s there and we always expect those things to be there. But for many people in the world, it’s not there. They lack the basic necessities in life. Food, water and shelter, along with many other things.

But my list starts even more basic than that. I’m grateful for the air that I breathe, for the heart beating blood in my chest, for the organs in my body, for every living cell and fibre that are functioning towards my survival, I am grateful. We forget about those things from time to time. Until of course these things come under risk.

Gratitude can change your life because it makes you appreciate what you have rather than what you don’t have. Gratitude can change your life because it is the single most powerful source of inspiration that any person can tap into if they simply just stop and paid attention to the simplistic beauty and miracle of life.

Maybe I’m in the minority when I say that gratitude can change your life. Maybe I’m part of the select few voices out there who really know, deep down inside that a transformational shift can occur when you become utterly grateful for everything in your life, even your problems. Or maybe not.

Maybe countless others out there hear the little voice inside their heads about needing to be grateful, and just maybe… maybe they don’t follow that advice. But I will tell you this — having true gratitude for things can completely change your life. One can transform from a cynic, a self-doubting pessimist, into a positive-thinking person, fueled by the momentum of deep-down appreciation for all things.

Whatever realm of thought you’re living in, the importance of gratitude cannot be underestimated. There are specific reasons why gratitude can change your life, and if you listen to them and truly hear the message beyond the words, there are some incredible things that will begin to happen for you over time.

What Are you Grateful for today? | 5/26/2020 - DEV Community

But don’t just take it from me. Some of the most successful people in the world live by this school of thought. They believe, deep down inside, that the pathway to success, whatever definition that might take on for you, is through an ever-grateful attitude for what you have today, right now, in this very moment, rather than what you’re lacking.