Count Your Blessings!

Welcome to my newest blog site … trandymay.com. I encourage you to visit it often as I will be posting daily. The primary focus of my posts will be in the area of Personal Growth and Development, and will spill over into the Growth and Development of my Internet Networking Experiences.

Hi again everyone, Randy May here … It is Sunday and I usually don’t post an article on the weekend, unless something is very special, in my mind at least, so here I am, sharing some very special information that really lifted my spirits today! When I woke up, I felt so good I didn’t think I could reach any higher, but than when I sat down and went through my Tool Box in Tools to Life for Day #15, I almost had to scrape myself off the ceiling!

Today was focused on gratitude and my attitude toward changes I want to make in my life, so I decided to copy and paste a section of today’s lesson from my Life Coach, Devlyn Steele. I hope that you are inspired as much as I am after reading this …

Let’s Look At What We Have

“Count Your Blessings!” Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
-Nathaniel Hawthorne

We talked about not watching the news or reading the paper in the first hour of each day. I mentioned to you that most people in America have a brain that’s programmed to be eighty percent negative. As a result, we feel as though we’re not empowered to make a difference in our lives. We don’t know where to get started, and it often seems useless. The constant negative messages and thoughts have a hangover effect in our lives. We live in a fog, not able to see our opportunities and not able to realize enjoyment in the here and now.

How can we feel the power to enjoy ourselves when we’re constantly told that we don’t have enough? We live comparing ourselves to others and trying to keep up with the Joneses. We forget to find joy in what we have. In fact, we forget what we have. We forget how fortunate we are to have our lives and our families, friends and more. We don’t appreciate our meals and our clothes. We drive down the highway and the faster, better, more expensive car that passes makes us feel inadequate. The lifestyles of the rich and famous train us to believe that our lives are failing, in comparison.

In working with terminally ill individuals, I’m amazed how all of a sudden they gain an appreciative viewpoint of life’s little pleasures. The rat race is just that—a rat race. I will expand on this subject in a later chapter, but we don’t need to face our mortality to learn to appreciate life as it is.

We also don’t need to overlook our lives or see them as insignificant or failing in comparison to others.

An amazing transformation takes place when we take a few moments to appreciate our lives for what we already have rather than focus on dissat­isfaction over what we perceive to be missing in our lives. My clients say this process is an instru­mental part of TOOLS and one that helps them really transition their thoughts from negative to positive. It’s a simple procedure, which I call the Grateful List.

Let me preface this by saying there is no requirement that you involve God in this. Your beliefs are entirely up to you, and I’m not preaching as part of TOOLS. When I introduce this part to my clients, I often get a reaction that I’m trying to install a religious ritual into their lives. At what point does it require a belief in God to be grateful for your life? Of course it doesn’t. We are often just too busy to take a moment to realize what we have.

I have had the privilege of dining in the finest restaurants in the world, being served the best in food and wines, yet I enjoyed pizza and beer with friends more. At the end of the day, after the basic needs of life are met, it’s not the material world that determines the quality of your life; it’s the experiences you have. You can’t stop to have good experiences when you’re always dissatisfied with the material world.

Now, I’m not advocating that you become a monk and give up your desire to pursue a better and more comfortable life. In fact, TOOLS will help you organize and develop techniques to achieve your goals, including financial goals. However, I am saying that life has to be kept in balance, and you have to learn to appreciate the journey. By enjoying the everyday, you’ll be empowered to achieve your goals. Developing a positive outlook to work from will provide a new source of energy and personal power that enables you to accomplish and develop the life you want.

In performing the simple tasks in TOOLS, which really take little time, the pathways in your mind develop patterns of thinking to gener­ate positive results. What I’m going to add to your Checklist is that you perform your Grateful List every day. It will only take a moment, and it will make a difference. Picking and choosing not to do this is a trap of failure, and you won’t absorb the nec­essary tools to accomplish the results of this course.

The Grateful List routine that you add to your morning routines is simple. You recite out loud all the things to be grateful for that you can think of. This may start small and build as the days go on. I want you to start with a minimum of ten things. Use your new Grateful Tool to keep track. That’s all you have to do, and this takes only a moment. You have to do this out loud, which is part of auto-conditioning. I will explain that soon.

The transformation that takes place in your life is amazing. You condition yourself to be grateful that you have a car, and when the better car drives by, it doesn’t have that de-motivating effect on you. You’re grateful for your family, and when you hear yourself say that day after day, the little annoyances seem to go away. We’ll talk more and more about this, and you’ll see the results. Your exercise right now is to write down ten things you’re grateful for and recite them out loud. Then you’ll do this every morning and keep adding to the list.

I can tell you I am grateful for the chance to work with you and to participate in all the benefits occurring in your life as you work your Tools to Life!

Drop back again and see how my journey is progressing. If you would like to comment on this post, please do. Comments are always appreciated!

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Published: May 6, 2012, 16:06 | 1 Comment on

Count Your Blessings!

Category: Tools To Life

One response to “
Count Your Blessings!

  1. Hello Randy,

    Very nice post. I completed Day 15 Coach Steele yesterday. It was a challenge for me, since I’m going through some rough things right now familywise. But I don’t want to let that stop me, or use it as an excuse, or complain.

    I choose to be grateful about where I am right now. I’m happy to see we are both using Tools To Life. WTG, man!

    Philippe

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