alt=”The Miracle Of Gratitude ~ Inner Circle” width=”222″ align=”right” />Dear %%FIRST_NAME%%,
Wow! Welcome to the end of your second week.
How are you feeling? How is it going? Have you been able to remember to do your gratitude minutes or any of the other techniques? Could I tempt you to let me know, via the week two discussion thread in the forum?
Week Two Discussions.
Today I’d like to talk about the importance of being able to spot the shifts and changes that appear in your life, as they arrive.
The Secret To Keeping Yourself Motivated
We talked a few days ago about how important it is to know your ‘big why?’, when embarking on any life change – it helps you to make the choices that your future you will thank you for.
But there’s another secret to motivation that I’d like to share with you today:
When we’re developing a skill or a habit it’s easy to keep ourselves motivated, once we’ve started to experience results. So your job is to make sure you’re noticing them.
Sometimes people give up on creating a new habit because they’re not seeing results – but results take time… and sometimes we’re too busy to notice the progress we’re making.
We wouldn’t expect to buy a pair of running shoes and suddenly be in the Olympics a week later!
The Miracle Of Gratitude is all about gently, but firmly, retraining your mind to think thoughts that come from a place of gratitude and love, rather than fear and worry. It’s a skill, just like any other we choose to develop. It takes practice. The Miracle Of Gratitude guides you, step by step, through making these changes.
Being able to spot the improvements and changes that creep in to our lives is essential, for staying motivated.
How to make it easy to spot those shifts
Keep a gratitude journal!
It doesn’t have to be posh or fancy or the length of War & Peace – even just a couple of lines a day will help.
We often don’t notice the improvements we have made and the changes that our gratitude practices have brought to our life until we re-read things that we wrote in our journal several weeks or months before. So you might want to get yourself a notebook and a pen and spend some time each day – or every few days – writing down what your experiences have been; any suggestions; any insights. Keeping a journal is a useful practice for marking the progress you are making on your journey. It can make a huge difference to your motivation.
Just scribble down your thoughts, as they come to you, each day – noting what you have learned and experienced. It doesn’t have to be a Pulitzer winner – the key is that it comes from your heart, without editing or judgement.
Quick Exercise
How about choosing a notebook and starting by answering these questions:
- What impact have the last 2 weeks had for you, so far?
- How have your emotions been going?
- How have you been feeling physically?
- How has your behaviour changed?
- Are you noticing it’s easier to carve out your daily time to practice gratitude?
- What do you notice, if you miss your gratitude practices on a particular day?
How about sharing your answers on the forum or on our Facebook page?
On the forum: Working with a gratitude journal
On Facebook: Miracle Of Gratitude On Facebook
Allow yourself to notice the progress you’re making! Celebrate it. Every minute you spend in gratitude, rather than stress, is a minute worth celebrating.
Gracias,
Namaste,
Here’s Your Week Two Project & Useful Links
Bedtime Gratitude Spiral
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- Before you fall asleep, choose three things you feel grateful for, to use for this exercise.
It might be something that happened during the day; it might be something from your gratitude jar. It doesn’t really matter what you choose, as long as it helps you to connect with the feeling of gratitude in your heart. - Allow yourself to gently rest in the feeling of gratitude for the first thing.
- Really experience the grateful emotion. Feel the gratitude expanding and growing. Don’t force, just let it naturally work its magic.
- Really dive into the experience you are feeling grateful for. See what you would be seeing, if it were happening right now; hear what you would hear; feel the physical sensations that you would feel.
- Allow the intensity of your gratitude to increase, perhaps imagining that you have a dial you can use to turn up the feeling.
- If the feeling of gratitude starts to wane, move on to the second thing and repeat #2.
Then, just as you notice it start to wane, move onto your third thing. - You can keep going, if you want to, until you fall asleep.
- Notice how your mood is shifted.
Perhaps say a heart-felt ‘thank you’ to yourself, for choosing to do the Bedtime Gratitude Spiral.
It can help to anchor this process into part of your bedtime routine, to help you remember to do it. For example, you could tie it in with turning off your light. If you read before you sleep, you could anchor it in with putting the book down. Or you could choose to do it when your head touches the pillow.
You only need to do this for a few days and already you’re creating a life-long positive habit.
I’d love to hear your experiences of playing with this technique. Here’s a special discussion thread in the forum, for you to share your insights and ask any questions you may have: The Bedtime Gratitude Spiral.
Here’s the members-only community (private) and even the Facebook Page (public), where you can ask questions, share your experiences and support others who are joining in with the Miracle Of Gratitude.