Gratitude practices have been on trend for some time now.  If you find the whole idea irritating, I get it –it grated on me too!  My feelings about the word were best demonstrated by a quote from the animated movie Anastasia where Anya has big dreams of finding her family but the orphanage mistress says

“I got you a job in the fish factory…Little Miss Anya it’s time to take your place in life  and in line.  And be grateful”. 

Somewhere, I got the idea that if you voiced that you wanted something different to what you had, that made you seem ungrateful/horrible.  But in the exercise below we will actually use gratitude as internal preparation for asking for what you want and even receiving it more often.

If you are already a fan of gratitude practices, still keep reading because the exercise below will show you how to take this practice beyond increasing contentment and happiness to bringing even more amazing people, things and opportunities into your life.

Reflecting on what you already have to be grateful for not only increases happiness in the present but can actually help even more wonderful blessings come into your life because when you practice focusing on good things, you are programing your mind to look for more good things, and you will learn to see amazing opportunities that you may not have noticed before.

This exercise is from the book Thank and Grow Rich by Pam Grout.  Try it for the next 3 days and see what happens:

1. List 10 things that you are grateful for. List different things each day that you do this exercise and force yourself to come up with 10 things, no matter how small they are or how negative you may be feeling.
2. Ask or pray for something wonderful and unexpected to happen today.
3. At the end of the day, reflect on what happened that was wonderful and unexpected.

See you here tomorrow for Day 6!

Sasha

PS if you would like to get your challenge questions/exercises in video form, you can access them from the Facebook Group here.