The other day I woke up in a bit of a slump (yes, it does happen to us coaches too, believe me!). While I was mumbling about my lot in life (which, by the way, is so minor compared to many other people I know), my partner asked me, ‘So, what are you going to do today?”. I shrugged and mumbled something pointless under my breath (I can’t remember what it was now but I know it was silly). He gave me a stern look and in a firm tone of voice said ‘How about being grateful today?”. That jolted me out of my slump pretty quickly (once I had a bit of sulk in the shower – yes, I told you – coaches also have those “bad” days!)
An hour later, as I was driving in my car, I thought to myself, ‘Jana, you really do have so much to be grateful for”. I proceeded to mentally tick off all the wonderful things that have happened and were happening, right that moment, in my life. And, as my day progressed, I was able to add more things to my list of things I could be grateful for. In fact, it ended up being such a wonderful day, full of so many little surprises, so many things I could be grateful for that I wrote a little conversation between “me, myself and I”, about all the things I was grateful for that day. It was a fun way of highlighting all the good things that happened to me that day but it also reminded me, once again, that “life is a series of thousands of tiny miracles”. I just had to notice them and be grateful for them.
What it also taught me was that an exercise I recite every morning and one that I insist every client of mine to do every day for the rest of their lives, had lost its power because I allowed it to. By reciting it every morning but not actually paying conscious attention to it, I was not acknowledging the questions as I could have done to make them powerful and effective. A very important lesson for me to learn!
Here are some of the ‘Power Questions” (courtesy of New Insights – thank you always for the wonderful tools you share) that you can learn, say with mindfulness and action every single day of your life, for the rest of your life:
What am I happy about today?
What am I grateful for today?
Who do I love?
Who loves me?
What can I do today that will make a difference?
What can I acknowledge within myself today?
And, guess what? By just being grateful, I ended up being very happy, I was full of love for all those around me and I realised how many loved me back. That by being grateful and happy and full of love, I was able to make a HUGE difference to my day and at the end of the day, I was able to acknowledge that I,indeed, hold the power within myself to create a good life simply by being grateful.