Gratitude List

Take a clean sheet of paper and start writing down all the things for which you are grateful.  Keep writing until you can think of no more.  And when you get to that point, don't stop the exercise.  Sit there quietly meditating, and allow more thoughts of gratitude to come into your mind.  Carry on overleaf, and even on another sheet of paper if you fill up both sides.  That instruction alone should give you some idea of just how much I believe should be on your "Gratitude List"!

When I went through my own reasons to be grateful, I listed one that will probably shock you.  My prostate cancer!

I can hear the cogs going round in your brain right now!  "How could he possibly be grateful for having had prostate cancer?"  Well there are many reasons for this:

• I am grateful for the way in which my prostate cancer surfaced.  It gave me symptoms (I understand it usually doesn't), and so I was able to get treatment quickly.  The speed with which I was treated almost certainly saved my life!
• I am grateful that I live in a country where I can receive good medical treatment and that I don't have to pay for that treatment.  That is something for which I should be very grateful, and I am.
• I am grateful that the cancer I contracted was one that can be treated if it is picked up quickly enough, as I know there are many forms of cancer that are much more difficult or even impossible to treat.
• I am grateful that I was insured against cancer, and that I was able to use the insurance payout to pay off my mortgage and start a part time online business.
• The list goes on ...

Every morning when I wake up I am grateful that I have been given yet another day to achieve something.  Another chance to change the world.  Yes, change the world!  Everything we do results in changes in the world even though we may not see them.  When I smile at a stranger I have no way of knowing what effect that smile may have.  But what I do know is that the effect is much more likely to be good than bad.  Perhaps the person I smiled at was feeling unwanted and unloved, but then the smile comes and they think "even this person who doesn't know me likes me and is smiling at me".  This may change their life completely, and for the good.  Another person may find the unexpected smile so uplifting that they smile at the next few people they meet, some of whom then have a similar reaction.  The ripple effect!  My smile may literally travel around the world and back, changing hundreds of people!  And no, I don't believe that is an exaggeration.  I truly believe that can be the case.  Not with every smile, but every so often.  And I don't just smile, of course!  I try in other ways to make the world around me a better place.  And so, as I said, I am thankful that God has given me another day to change the world, and I do what I can to change it for the better.

When I first taught myself to sell, I read about a door-to-door salesman who had what seemed like a strange habit.  Every time someone rejected him he thanked them.  Most didn't comment and probably thought no more about it, assuming he was just being polite.  But one day someone asked him why he always thanked the people who rejected him.  I think the "someone" was a trainee salesman who had been told to "shadow" him, as he was the best salesman in his company.  Then the salesman explained he really was grateful.  Like any good salesman, he knew his statistics.  He knew that most people would reject him, but a certain percentage would want to buy what he was selling.  I cannot recall the figures, but let's just say it was 1% who would want to buy.  One in a hundred doors knocked.  So our salesman saw each rejection as one step closer to that one sale.  He knew he had to meet 99 people before he found the one who wanted to buy.  The person who just said "no" was one of the 99, so now there were just 98 left!  How is that for a positive view on life?  How is that for a reason to be thankful?

If you do put down anything on your list that could look negative, like my cancer, or the salesman's rejection, make sure you write a bit next to it explaining why you are thankful.  I strongly recommend you do this.  It can make a massive difference to the way in which you view the things in your life that seem to be negative.  And it is your attitude to what happens which really counts.  Nothing outside you can make you miserable.  It is your reaction to what happens that either makes you happy or sad.  Personally I prefer to be happy rather than sad, so I try to find the good in everything that happens - as you probably realize from what I said about my cancer.

So spend some time now thinking about all the positive outcomes from what might look like bad things that have happened, and add those positive outcomes to your list.

If you have done this properly you should now have quite a few pages listing all the reasons you have to be thankful.  Just producing this list will make at least a small change to the way in which you react to things in the future.  And you should look at this list often, so you become more and more positive about your life.

Do this, and the Universe will see you are thankful for what it gives you.  And guess what?  The Universe gives more to those who who are thankful for its gifts!  This is one very important step in the process called "Manifesting", which you can use to attract to you the things you want to receive.  Make sure you do this regularly, make sure you are always thankful for the many good things you receive and you will find, apparently mysteriously, the good things you receive will gradually increase.