Thankfulness As A Lifestyle

I do love Thanksgiving but thankfulness is not just something for Thanksgiving Day, thankfulness is a lifestyle that will add value to you and to those around you.

Have you ever felt run down, tired and stressed out? Have you ever felt a knot in your stomach when a bill was overdue, or you just had a confrontation with someone? Have you felt overwhelmed? Do you get headaches and have pressure in your chest?

A few years ago I learned a very simple technique that helps keep perspective on the things that matter. Sit down and write down 5 things that you are sincerely thankful for. Think about those things. Suddenly you will feel all of that worry and torment start to lift off you.

When we dwell on the ugly in our lives or choose to see the problem instead of the solution we will drown in the emotional baggage department of a crashing airplane. Part of big picture thinking is keeping the things that we are thankful for right in front of us. The way we view things is imperative for our mental health and it is also important for our future successes.

Thanksgiving Dinner is great,
but an attitude of thankfulness is life changing and life giving!

I have met people who describe a family problem or a conflict with a relationship and they are totally focused on everything that is going wrong and everything that has went wrong in the past. They have a scorecard that they are using to total their hurts. I get it, the pain is very real, but if we stay there healing can never happen. I have a family too and we have had some challenges. One of my children has supplied me with many opportunities for real and lasting humility. But today I am really, really thankful because things are better. They are not perfect, but there has been a remarkable progress and things are changing. Some of those steps may seem small to an outsider. Some of the things that I am celebrating may not look like a victory to you. But I know where we were one year ago and I am very thankful that things are not that way today.

In business we sometimes make mistakes. Maybe we rush in too fast without getting all of the facts. Maybe we underestimate a need that we will have and we don’t prepare for it or we overestimate the market and invest too much time and money in an unprofitable experience. We hire people that don’t work out. We let others go when we really needed them. We didn’t get the marketing done and now the well is dry and no new customers are coming in. We seem to run out of time. We are stuck in the doing and there we are “in” our business, instead of “on” our business. We don’t own it; it owns us! It seems so futile…

But what are you thankful for? I am thankful that I am master of my own destiny. I am thankful that I am a business owner and not an employee. I am thankful that today I make the choices of whether or not to network or to market my business. I am thankful for the experiences of meeting new and dynamic business owners.

We had quite a journey to get to where we are today. It has been a real hike, up hill, in a snow storm, dragging a bag of rocks with our feet fettered together and a herd of cattle standing in our way. The journey though, has made us stronger, and for that I am thankful. There is more journey coming with more challenges, but we have learned to love life and enjoy the journey no matter what peril we must fight through. We choose to be happy because happiness is a choice. We choose to be thankful, because thankfulness is a choice.

Every Thanksgiving I think of the first Europeans who came to the shores of Canada and the US. The images of pilgrims and Native Americans have been burned into my brain since childhood. The school teachers must have done a good job with me because I can almost see it. I can feel their thankfulness. The idea of a harsh winter in foreign land. It meant impending death if there was not a bountiful harvest. That was the fate of pioneers and settlers for at least 200 years here in North America.

Now we can go to the grocery store any time of year and get mangos, pineapple, coconuts and fresh tomatoes any time of year. In Canada if we don’t make enough money to live we will have a government cheque slid under the door. It is hard to starve to death, so we forget. But really living is not so easy. There is more to life than just getting by. There are places to go and people to see and things to do. A life worth living is a life of real living. Stretch your mind to new heights. Start with thankfulness.

Always Loyal2U,

Kerry George 

Kerry George is the founder of www.Loyal2U.ca and the CEO for the Canadian Imperial Business Network www.cibn.ca  Kerry is a speaker, author and champion for small business in the Southern Alberta region. You can follow Kerry on Twitter @createloyalty2U or at @yycbiznetwork or @CIBNtweets or visit her page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KerryLynneGeorge