5 Reasons why you need an Attitude of Gratitude
Hey Gorgeous. Thank you for being here.
Today, I’m going to share 5 Reasons why you need to keep an Attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a big part of me and it’s something that our kids and my whole family practice every day and in every opportunity we get.
Fair warning about this post. Mother’s Day this year has been the best Mother’s Day I’ve ever had. And because of that, this post has some personal bits and pieces sprinkled everywhere so if that’s not your thing, it’s cool. Just skip the parts that bore you.
Ok, now that it’s out of the way, let’s go back to the Gratitude thing.
Having grateful kids is a bonus. Kuya (big brother) loves to thank me for the smallest thing I’ve done. He thanks me for staying in bed with him at night time even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Just this morning, he thanked me for hiding his phone. He said he was thankful because I hid the phone. It helped him remove the temptation of using the phone in the morning. This kid is 11 years old, and I thought that was so mature of him to take it that way.
I was on the phone with @Ness the other day, and M whispered she had something important to say. She said, “Thank you for making the pizza today”. By the way, the pizza was burnt on the sides and I was so touched she was still thankful.
Having grateful kids warms my heart. It makes me feel that I succeeded with my goal of inspiring our kids to be grateful too. I’m forever grateful for having them.
I’ve been practising this attitude of gratitude since I was young. Having an Attitude of Gratitude is just one of the many good habits (and words wisdom) I’ve learned from my Mother.
Last year, I published Grateful heart’s week for an Attitude of Gratitude, followed by Gratitude Quotes to get you unstuck.
I’m posting another Gratitude Post, because my heart is overflowing with gratitude at the moment.
If you’re already practising this habit, I want to tell you that I’m happy for you and may you share with others the beauty of having this attitude.
However, if this is something new to you, then stay with me a while and let me share with you the reasons why an attitude of gratitude is essential.
What’s an Attitude of Gratitude?
Merriam-Webster defines gratitude as the state of being grateful.
And before we continue, I want you to know that if you decide to practice this Attitude of Gratitude after this post, I created a free resource for you.
You can download the FREE 7 days Gratitude Journal here.
An Attitude of Gratitude is a practice of expressing our appreciation of everything. We appreciate the big and the small, all the grand experiences we have and even the simple pleasures.
Having an Attitude of Gratitude means we stay grateful even if things are not going well. We appreciate the good, the bad, the ugly and the whole package of life.
While expressing gratitude can look different for every person, for me, an Attitude of Gratitude is a habit. It’s a mindset and in a way a form of generosity and kindness.
It’s a mindset because being grateful means we have this belief that everything is important and relevant in terms of adding value to our lives.
An attitude of gratitude is a form of generosity in a way because we give thanks to people, things and events. We are being generous with our time, taking that extra minutes of our day to find good in everything.
It’s a form of kindness because when we appreciate people we are being sincere and not just being nice. By being grateful, we are choosing to look within ourselves and try to see the best in people, events, and even things.
Why do you need an Attitude of Gratitude?
There’re so many reasons why we need to Practice an Attitude of Gratitude. In the name of being intentional, I will be sharing my top 5 favourites.
Among the many benefits of having an Attitude of Gratitude are: it can improve our mental strength, It can help boost happiness, and it can also keep us optimistic.
Without sounding too dramatic, being grateful is one of the biggest reasons why I have a better life now.
Because I was the most ambitious among the 3 of us (siblings), I had to move out of home at age 12 and lived with other people so I could eventually work as a home helper and then send myself to school.
I had it rough while growing up, and for the most part, I had to live independently. Technically, I didn’t live by myself. I was so lucky to have met good-hearted people and I lived from one family to another from when I was 12 years old until I was able to rent my own space on my own at age 16.
I had no blood relations with most of those families who helped me have a home to live in. They were loving people and they saw how many big dreams I had in me. I’m forever grateful for each of them. Most of them have become my family and long-term friends.
Even though I was not alone technically. for the most part, I had to figure out life on my own. I had to make so many mistakes, learn from them and start again.
Thinking back at those experiences brings a little bit of pain but at the same time, I’m so humbled by those painful experiences. I’ve gone through so much that If I didn’t have the attitude of being always grateful, I would have not pulled through.
What made a massive change in my life for the better and changed it in a way I could never imagine was when I met my husband R. But that’s another story, another blog post in another time.
5 Reasons why you need to keep an Attitude of Gratitude
1. The Attitude of Gratitude helps you get perspective on what matters in life
Having an Attitude of Gratitude means we are paying more attention to what we have already rather than what we don’t have. Oftentimes, it makes us feel that we have everything we need and more.
When we start to live with the mindset that we have enough more than we need and everything else is a bonus, we will soon start noticing that we need less than what we think we need.
That said, it doesn’t mean we need to stop wanting. By all means, keep that desire to have whatever else is important to you and go for it. We just need to remember that while doing so, we need to appreciate what we have already.
I grew up in a poor family. So poor I had to walk barefoot to school once. We lost my father when I was 7 years old and my mother had to raise all 3 kids under 7 years old. I remember life was tough then, we had to work and pull our weights despite being young.
Don’t worry we were nurtured by my Mother in the best way she knew. So, working while young was never an issue and we did it because we value helping each other. My Mother has been nothing but caring, supportive and loving in her unique way.
I’m so lucky to have a Mother like her.
We might not have a lot growing up but it didn’t make us feel less. I love thinking about those days when we had to share simple home-cooked food that my Mother cooked. I also knew that Mother had to pretend so many times that she was not hungry just so my sisters and I could have enough to eat.
It’s a bittersweet memory, it hurts but at the same time it made me proud of how I was raised and I wouldn’t change my history for the world. It made me who I am today and I am grateful for that forever.
Having that humbling experience helped me value gratitude, love, connection, simplicity and compassion over material things.
An Attitude of Gratitude helps reduce focus on materialism
2. An Attitude of Gratitude helps us appreciate everything (yes, both good and bad)
Life is so beautiful and mysterious. One minute we can be happy and in another minute something will come up and bring us to tears. Ups and downs and ebb and flow are a natural part of life and it’s a journey.
Practising an attitude of gratitude enables us to appreciate everything about life. There are always positive and negative circumstances that come with it. How we react to them, determines the kind of impact it would have on our life journey.
When it comes to life experiences, there are two things that an Attitude of Gratitude teaches us. I’m talking about positive and negative experiences.
Lesson 1: When we are having a negative experience (which hurts us and gives us all the negative emotions possible), an attitude of gratitude teaches us to hang tight because there will be an end to this experience somewhere down the track and hopefully it happens soon.
Lesson 2: When we are having a positive experience (which is so good and makes our hearts so full), an attitude of gratitude teaches us to live in the moment, be more present and enjoy the experience. Because whether we like it or not, this experience can be replaced with another experience sooner than we realise.
3. An attitude of Gratitude helps you manage Negativity Bias
In my post about 3 Affirmations when things are not going well, I mentioned that our brain tends to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Psychologists call this Negative bias or Negativity bias.
So, it’s only natural that sometimes, we can’t help but be negative about things, events and even people. And in some cases, we don’t even notice it. So, the best we can do is to make sure that we train our brain to focus on the positive every time we catch ourselves leaning on the negative lane.
Aside from positive affirmations, being grateful could also help.
If you are a mum like me, I’m sure you can relate. Our kids are wonderful human beings but sometimes they do things that do our heads in.
Their actions push our boundaries and challenge our patience. When this happens in our household, R and I always say to each other, we are lucky we have children. So many people who want to be parents but sadly it just not happening for them. This conversation is often enough for us to just let go and just enjoy the life of being parents. This mindset also let us enjoy and appreciate our children just the way they are.
4. An attitude of Gratitude helps you stay present
Just like any habit, developing an attitude of being grateful, is not an easy thing to do. I have been practising gratitude for a long time and I’ll admit it, I’m not always positive.
Most of the time, I’m optimistic, yes, but it doesn’t mean I’m always positive 100 per cent of the time. I used to feel bad about this but now I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m a human and I’m not perfect.
In as much as I want to remain positive at all times, there are some situations where being positive is just not possible. We are humans and emotions can be powerful and sometimes we can’t help but just let the emotion drives our actions. Negative thoughts influence our thought process and actions.
To avoid this from happening all the time we need to be more mindful of what thoughts we are thinking. Only then we will become more aware of those thoughts and then see if they’re helpful thoughts or not.
So we need to be present and slow down if need be, By doing this we can catch ourselves early when the negative thoughts are starting to creep in and we can then reframe that thought by finding the good about it.
5. An Attitude of Gratitude helps us become more generous and kind to others
Expressing our appreciation to other people is a kind thing to do. Taking that time to find the best in people, like a smile, creates a ripple effect and it can be contagious.
You know, sometimes, a simple thank you can make a difference in someone’s life.
I remember M, when we had to get a Covid test done. She said to the nurse: “Thank you for working today”, and I saw how the nurse’s face lit up.
It made me feel so proud of her but more importantly I appreciate our kids more.
When a person is not at his best and we still appreciate him or her, that is kindness. Writing this reminded me of Kuya who is my true model of kindness and compassion. I’m not always in good mood just like anyone else. Sometimes I get mad at something really small and not important. Kuya is always quick to say, you are a good mum, Mummy. If that’s not kindness, I’m not sure what is.
Next Actions
I hope those 5 reasons I shared have convinced you to start the attitude of gratitude. Start at this hour. Then try tomorrow. Take notice and just appreciate what’s in front of you.
Then try again the next day. Notice the difference in your mood and your happiness.
If you need a little extra help I created a FREE Gratitude Template for you to download from our Freebie Collection.
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