Gratitude is 100% a Choice

Emotions are a strange thing.  We think we choose them, but then oftentimes outside sources trigger these emotions and it feels beyond our control.  There is one emotion, though, that for us seems to be almost always in our control.

Gratitude, we believe, is one of the only emotions that only we can choose to feel. It’s difficult for others to trigger because it truly comes from within. If only we can choose to be grateful, and we have learned in the past that gratitude reveals growth, then why would we be anything but grateful?

See gratitude is our choice so if we just choose to focus on the things that we are grateful for, we will start seeing the growth in nearly every event in our life.  Whether the results were “good” or “bad” seems to matter less when you take any situation and find the growth so you can focus on that! The second we can find growth is when we can get out of a state of mind that is less than ideal or somewhere we don’t want to be.

At one of the lowest points in my life, it was impossible for me to see any good at times but when I started to reflect on what I could be grateful for, it was impossible to ignore the good…because I saw the growth first and it reminded me of why the situation was actually good!

If you are feeling like you are in a funk or if you feel you are slipping into a bad spot, get back to the practice of gratitude. You can make lists as long as you can of what you are grateful for and review that as many times as you need to until you can see growth and decide to start feeling grateful as a result. You will not feel happy immediately but you will be amazed how fast you will start to come around and get out of that funk and back into the growth-driven life you deserve.