Humans, in general, tend to focus on the bad things in life. We are always quick to point out the negatives and we love to complain, bitch, whinge, moan, and whine, whenever we get a chance. Don't believe me? Try naming five words that describe the action of talking about positives. It is hard. Much harder than naming negative words. In fact we have so many words in our language that describe a negative action or have a negative connotation that negativity is our default stance. I will leave it up to the philosophers to determine which came first though - the negativity as a default or the negative-based language. The point is that when surrounded by negativity we become a naturally negative being, and when we are negative we just end up creating more negativity in our life. Not a good place to be. The brilliant thing is that we can change this cycle with a little forced positivity called "The Gratitude Attitude".

The Gratitude Attitude

The objective is simple - be more positive - but how do you suddenly introduce positivity into a negative environment? Gratitude is the answer. Gratitude simply is the action of being thankful, and I am talking about being thankful for EVERYTHING! Even the littlest positive thing that you can imagine in your life is worth being thankful for.

Change your thoughts and you change your world - Norman Vincent Peale

The simple action of gratitude encourages you to open your eyes and see all that is great around you, to experience it, and enjoy it. So are you keen to change your world and take the first step to becoming a positive and happy person who loves their life? Then try keeping a Gratitude Diary.

Exercise: The Gratitude Diary

To easiest way to start introducing positivity into your life is to keep a daily Gratitude Diary for at least two weeks. I promise that you will notice the difference.

Night: Every night before you go to bed write the heading "I am grateful for:" and underneath it record three unique things from the day. Trawl through your entire day and find three separate positive things that you can be grateful for. They do not have to be anything particularly big - it could even be just a great sandwich you had!

Morning: Grab your Gratitude Diary and re-read the entry from the previous night. Physically read it aloud and cast your mind back to remember the three positive things that you wrote down the night before. I recommended doing this as soon as you get up to prevent slipping back into negative habits (alarm clocks are prime candidates for encouraging negativity).

Extra: When you get the hang of this exercise you can increase its effects by limiting yourself to only adding things you have not been grateful for in the past. This will force your mind to search your day and extract any positives, no matter how small.

Note: When keeping a Gratitude Diary, the more specific the better. Instead of saying "I am grateful for my wife" try to find a specific action from the day that you can be thankful for. For example: "I am grateful for my wife making me coffee this morning". The little things really do count the most.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it - William Arthur Ward

Image: nuttakit