It’s the most thankful time of the year – a time when we give thanks for everything and everyone in our lives. It is when we look around at our lives and take in what we most appreciate,  from the health of ourselves and our loved ones to the success of our business to the success of our loved ones. Although we tend to recognize what we’re grateful for at this time of year,  in reality, we should be thankful all year round. 

Why gratitude matters

Gratitude is arguably one of the most important parts of life, from running a business to feeling healthy and happy in life. Gratitude allows you to appreciate your network, especially your top advocates. Giving thanks also helps you appreciate your challenges and even your failures. 

Even when it’s hard to feel thankful, such as this time when your network isn’t responding to you or if you don’t reach your sales goals, or when you feel too overwhelmed to focus and you become stuck. That’s when it seems impossible to feel thankful and exactly when you should.  You’ve got to have gratitude for every aspect of your life. 

“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”

Willie Nelson

Count your blessings

You have blessings all around you – count them! Create a gratitude inventory and list all of the things you’re grateful for. There’s something to give thanks for every day. Perhaps the sun is shining. Or it’s an unseasonably warm day. Or maybe it was a breeze to get the kids off to school. Perhaps you are having a super rockstar day and people in your network are responding to you. Perhaps you woke up and just felt like you could take on any challenge that came your way today. There are days when it’s easy to be grateful for everything you have, then there are days when it is very hard and takes every ounce of your strength and fortitude to appreciate even the smallest thing. 

A gratitude inventory is a checklist of all the things that have gone right in your day that you give thanks for. It could include things big and small that you appreciate. You can include people, situations, and things that happened to feel thankful for later on. If you’re thankful that you woke up and felt happy, that’s something to include in your gratitude inventory as well. 

The best time to create and update your list

When it’s hard to give thanks, it’s easy to lose sight of everything that we are so lucky to have in our lives. When something bad happens it’s easy to feel knocked sideways and off our game. Sometimes one bad thing can completely ruin the day. How often has that happened to you? If a negative thing can have such a profound negative effect on the state of your day, just imagine what a positive thing can do. And that’s where gratitude comes in.

The key is to include things in your inventory even when you’re not feeling so appreciative and gracious. This could be when you’ve had a bad day, if you haven’t met your sales goals for the month and you’re feeling down on yourself and your business, or if the day just isn’t going right for you. This is the best time for you to update your gratitude inventory and then look through the items that you had previously included in your inventory. This allows you to recall everything that you feel grateful for. You can remember things that you had forgotten that you felt grateful for. Then you can feel grateful for them all over again. For example, if you’re having a bad month reaching your sales goals, you can flip back to a few months ago when you were the rock star on your team and we’re able to not only reach your sales goals but exceed them. This allows you to gain perspective, and realize that negative events and failures are temporary. 

Changing your perspective 

It’s like Willie Nelson says in the quote above when you start to count your blessings you’ll find that your whole life turns around. This includes your attitude, your perspective, and your reaction to everything that happens in your life, whether good or bad. You’ll find that you’ll begin to see challenges or setbacks as something temporary, not permanent states of being. This will help you not only in your business but in your life as well. Negative things or situations won’t knock you sideways as easily as before, because you’ll feel grateful for the opportunity to learn something new or to react in a way contrary to how you would have reacted before.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

How to cultivate thanks every day

Like anything good for your business, gratitude is a habit. It is something that you must practice every single day. Just as we suggest you do your Power Hour several times a week, we also suggest updating your gratitude inventory several times a week as well. 

How often should you add to your list?

Sometimes it’s just not possible to update the list every single day. However, if you are able to update your list every day, then you may find that you feel more appreciative of everything around you as a result. Aimed to update it several days a week. Start with two or three days, and work up from there.

Clear your mind

Before you start adding to your list or creating it for the first time, you want to go somewhere quiet. The quiet gives your brain the space to think about all the things that you appreciate in your life, in your business, and in your day. Think about what happened during the day: what do you appreciate the most about the day? Was it the weather? Perhaps you completed your Power Hour in record time? Was it that you added a new member to your team or converted a prospect into a customer? These are all things to feel thankful for. Be sure to write them down!

Review your list and give thanks

Although it’s important to continue to add to the list, it’s also important to review the list and give thanks for everything that you feel grateful for. Sometimes we become so busy adding to the list, or worrying about adding to the list, that we forget to review what we’ve already felt thankful for. 

Be sure to schedule a time to review your gratitude list periodically. How often that is up to you. Many network marketers who keep gratitude inventory lists review them weekly. Others may review them monthly. Still, others may review them when they’re feeling unmotivated or if they’ve experienced a setback or a challenge that has made them feel a bit down. When you decide to review your list is up to you. Just be sure to do it on a regular basis, however often that is for you.

Share the habit of thanks with your team

Gratitude is contagious so be sure to share the habit with your team. Encourage them to write down what they feel thankful for as well and encourage them to do it regularly. If you want, you could even share a few things that you are thankful for in your life to get them thinking about what they’re thankful for in theirs. Although some may find it hard to get started, once they get going, they may find it hard to stop. This seemingly small habit can help them improve their perspective and their attitudes towards their businesses and their approach to life, which can benefit their businesses in both the short and long terms

 We’re saying thanks to you!

Without you, we will be unable to help you and other network marketers and create the foundation for strong network marketing businesses. Thank you for trusting us to help you build and grow your network marketing business. We’re here to help you succeed and are excited to be part of your business journey.