Today I was walking down the sweaty, sticky streets of New York City and it hit me. I’m so freaking fortunate. I’m fortunate in terms of the circumstances I was born into and I’m fortune to have had the ability and opportunity to work my ass off and build the kind of life that I want. The thing is, I don’t always remember this.
Often I find myself getting caught up in what’s not working or what’s still left to accomplish; feeling behind, not good enough, and to be blunt, a little sorry for myself.
I have founded and grown a six figure business that allows me complete and total freedom of location and schedule. I travel to at least 2 new countries every year, always have good, healthful food on the table, and an warm in the winter in my cozy home. I get to live in New York City, have a happy relationship, my health, a wonderful family, and close friends. My business’s mission to to help others to build businesses that encompass their own definition of success, so it’s an incredibly rewarding business to have.
How in the world could I be anything but utterly happy and fulfilled?
For the most part I am happy and fulfilled. But like a lot of other people (especially fellow business owners), I tend to let myself focus on the things that are not exactly how I want them, and seem to conveniently forget about all the things that are.
I’m betting that some of you reading this have this same particular issue.
And it is an issue, because, besides the obvious problems with this outlook, there’s also the not-so-obvious problem of the impact it has on our own self-care and by extension, our businesses.
When we allow ourselves to focus on what’s not done/ready/right and forget about all the things that are done/ready/right, we up our stress level to a point that it doesn’t need to be. We lose sleep, eat poorly, don’t exercise, get cranky, and send out negative vibes.
Having gratitude is one of the most important things we can practice in our lives and our businesses. When you’re grateful for all that you’ve been given as well as all that you’ve worked really hard to accomplish, things are really put into perspective. When the business is difficult or the bank account is low, it’s easy to shift into to negative feelings and attitudes. But practicing gratitude changes that. You’re reminded of all that you have to be thankful for and suddenly the bad doesn’t seem so bad.
Something I’m going to start seriously doing is keeping a gratitude journal where I jot down the things that I’m so very fortunate to have and look at it whenever I’m feeling frustrated about what I don’t yet have. I also plan to start saying out loud how fortunate I am every time I’m feeling less than. I’m really interested to se what kind of impact this has on my well-being, my attitude, and my business as a whole.
What do you think? Are you up for the challenge of the gratitude journal? I hope so.
Lots of love and encouragement,