Grateful for What We Wished for

There was a time in my life that I wished for the things I have now.

I wished for the mortgage and car payment that I hate paying each month.

I wished for these children the wake me up at 6am on a Saturday demanding food.

I wished for the office job that keeps me tied to a desk for 8 hours a day.

Practicing daily gratitude has really helped keep me in a more appreciative mindset when life gets stressful. We get so busy looking at what we don’t have, we easily forget the be happy with what we have. It seems like once we have what we wanted we don’t take time to appreciate it. We just move on to the next thing. We don’t take enough, if any, time to be grateful for what we wished for.

I’m not saying drive and momentum are a bad thing, its what keeps us growing. But what is the point of growing if you are not grateful for your progress?

Now, I am not saying I am perfect at this all the time. I am a human. But just go with me for a minute with the gratitude stuff.

If you woke up Monday morning and changed your first thought from “I have to go to work today” to “I get to go to work today” then maybe, just maybe you might have a more positive day. That is not to say that things at work won’t try and overrun your positive energy. But by starting off in a more positive place you are more apt to keep it.

You can apply this same mindset to your kids as well. Try waking up before them. Nothing crazy, even just 10 minutes to get yourself up before you are needed can improve you attitude for the rest of the day. Change “I have to get to up” to “I get to get up first” and see how different your morning may be.

Small changes in the way we think about our lives can make a bigger impact than you think. Whether you believe in it or not, there really is something to the phrase “Thoughts become things.”