Do you know how all this gratitude started for me?

Living Your Best Life

Before gratitude became the focus of my work and even before I started practicing gratitude, I used to use it as a tool to help people on their path to creating the life they wanted. I was doing health and wellness coaching and basically with that work I would support people through the process of accomplishing their goals.

It was a beautiful thing. We would go through a visioning process for the clients to build clarity around how they wanted to be in the world and what being at their best would look like. Then they would set a plan for getting there with practical and doable small steps they would take each week. During our weekly follow up sessions a specific pattern would show up time and time again. And this pattern was surprisingly consistent considering the diversity of clients I worked with.

The pattern centered around clients being very down on themselves. I saw people looking down instead of making eye contact. I saw them shaking their heads. I heard them saying: “I should have __________. I know better. I can’t believe I did/didn’t __________. This is why my life is like this.” My clients would be down on themselves like this when I first met with them and it would reemerge when they didn’t accomplish what they set out to that week.

This pattern is particularly interesting because the habit of being self-critical like this actually keeps people stuck. The number one thing that research, as well as experience, has shown to be effective for making changes is self-efficacy (the belief that one can do it). Regardless of other factors, the more people believe they can do it the more likely they are to successfully do it.

And this is where gratitude came in. When clients would be down on themselves I would ask them two questions.

• What is one thing you have done this week that you are proud of?
• What are you grateful for?

These questions worked like magic to get people to change their perspective and begin to improve their self-efficacy. Suddenly the focus was on their strengths, their resilience, what is working in their lives all of which they could build from.

Whether we are aiming to thrive, live our best life, make a big change in our life or just survive another day, gratitude is such a useful tool to change our minds about ourselves and our abilities so we get out of our own way.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
~Nelson Mandela

What are you grateful to see as possible for your life right now?

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[su_note note_color=”#e7e7e7″ text_color=”#686767″ radius=”0″] My gratitude journey started in May 2011 and continues to this day. Thank you for being a part of it! A daily gratitude practice is simple. Write down three things you are grateful for each day. Download your free GratitudeGuide. My clients focus on gratitude and learn from their successes to make the positive changes they want in their lives. You can too. Call me to set up our first meeting 505.333.9336. [/su_note]