by
Jack Canfield
The practice of giving thanks is commemorated today in America as a national holiday. But if you want to live the Law of Attraction, appreciation shouldn’t be confined to a solitary day. It should be incorporated into your daily living.
Appreciation is the oxygen that breathes life into the three-step Law of Attraction process. It turns the spark of your desire into a full-blown flame that effortlessly attracts the things you want like moths to a candle.
Three Steps to Attract What You Want
The first step of the Law of Attraction is quick and easy: Ask. As soon as you become aware of a desire, announce it to the universe. State your intention out loud, write it down, post a picture of what you want on a vision board, or simply think, “I want that!”
The next step is Believe. Believe that you can have the thing you want, and then release your desire to the universe. Trust that you’ll receive what you want or something better. Either way, the decision is in the universe’s hands. Detachment from the outcome occurs when you have total faith that the universe will give you exactly what is perfect for you right here, right now.
Affirmations are used to remove doubt about whether you’ll get or you deserve what you want. An affirmation describes your goal as already complete. It affirms what you want vs. what you don’t want. It also captures how you feel when celebrating your goal. This allows you to feel the actual feelings you’ll experience upon achieving your goal. For example, “I am feeling light and alive at my perfect body weight of one thirty-five.
Appreciation works its magic during the final step – Receive. Appreciation is one of the highest emotional states you can be in. It is the state of abundance. The Law of Attraction states that like attracts like. If you are grateful for what you have already received, you will attract more for which you can be grateful.
Think for a moment about your own experience with holiday gift giving. When relatives show sincere pleasure and appreciation for the gifts you give, no matter how simple, you want to shower them with even more. Gift giving becomes a delight for you as much as for the recipients. Contrast this with people who don’t acknowledge your presents or who dismiss them as not big enough, impressive enough, or “right” enough. Giving gifts to these individuals becomes an obligation. You don’t spend hours searching for the perfect gift. You settle for an item that’s adequate.
The universe operates in a similar way. Its best gifts go to individuals who vibrate at the highest levels of appreciation for the gifts they’ve already received.
To create the vibrational match with what you want, live in the feeling space of already possessing the things you want. Appreciate what you already have, and you’ll be vibrating in the same state of gratitude you’ll be in when the universe delivers what you want.
Appreciate the Smallest Blessings
Activate your gratitude by acknowledging the gifts most people take for granted.
If you have food in your refrigerator (meaning that you have electricity), clothes in your closet and a roof over your head, you are better off than 75 percent of the world’s population. If you eat three meals a day, you are far better off than the 1 billion people on the planet who eat once a day at most. Celebrate these simple blessings.
Do you have a phone? Be grateful – millions don’t. How about a car that allows you to travel to work or to explore the country? Is your family healthy? Do you have a computer and Internet access to stay in touch with the world, get access to education, and perform work for which you are paid? Do you have clean water to drink? These daily conveniences are gifts that most people in the world do not enjoy.
Daily Appreciation Habits
Here are five easy ways to make appreciation part of your daily routine:
- Take 7 minutes each morning to write down all you appreciate. Starting your day this way primes you to be receptive and grateful for everything your day will bring.
- Carry a physical token of gratitude in your pocket, such as a stone, crystal or some other small item. As you reach into your pocket throughout the day and feel the token, use it as a reminder to stop, breathe and take a moment to fully experience the emotion of gratitude.
- Appreciate at least 3 people every day. Most people enjoy receiving verbal appreciation. But written notes are also nice because they can be saved and re-read.
- Play the Appreciation Game. As the saying goes, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Look for the good in all situations. When my wife was in a car accident a few years ago, she could have chosen to berate herself or question her judgment. Instead, she focused on her gratitude for suffering only minor injuries and for the help she received from other drivers.
- Appreciate yourself. We all need acknowledgement, but the most important acknowledgement is what we give ourselves. In addition to celebrating your big successes, acknowledge your small daily successes, too. During my annual Breakthrough to Success training, I assign the Mirror Exercise as homework because your subconscious mind needs positive encouragement to pursue further achievements and to change any negative beliefs you hold toward praise and accomplishment. This powerful exercise requires you to appreciate yourself for the day’s accomplishments while talking to yourself in a mirror.
Appreciation Is Not Human Nature
Many people find that it requires great diligence to cultivate an attitude of appreciation. We are culturally conditioned to focus on what we don’t have, rather than appreciating what we’ve already received.
Decades ago, the University of Chicago conducted a fascinating study into appreciation. Researchers took soldiers who had recently returned from the World War II Pacific Theater and housed them in Quonset huts on campus. At first, the men were delighted with their housing, because they were ecstatic to be off the battlefield. After about 30 days, however, they started to complain about their Quonset huts. Rather than being grateful for a simple, yet safe, place to live, they began to focus on what they didn’t have. They became dissatisfied with not having more comfortable quarters.
It may not feel natural at first to focus on appreciating what you already have. But by faithfully using the appreciation exercises outlined in this article, you’ll change your conditioning. Giving thanks will become more than an occasional exercise. It will become a daily discipline that allows you to vibrate in more of what you want from life.
About the author:
Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now: Free Success Strategies
