“Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech.”

–Mary Baker Eddy, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures

We love Thanksgiving—and by Thanksgiving, we don’t JUST mean the Thursday in late November when loved ones gather to eat a traditional holiday meal together (we love THAT too!) We also love the practice of giving thanks, which is something to strive for any time of the year. While gratitude is certainly a hallmark of the holiday season, including it in your daily habits can have a major impact on your mental, spiritual, and even financial well-being.

This year, we’d love to share our gratitude with you… our habits and traditions of gratitude, as well as the things we are currently giving thanks for (that might enrich your life as well.) We also invite you to share your own gratitude in our comments section below, and/or share the gratitude through social media!

What Does Gratitude Mean?

So we’re all on the same page, let’s get clear about what gratitude means. By definition, gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

We would add that there’s immense power in being grateful proactively. In other words, expressing gratitude before something occurs. For example, it can set a powerful precedent to wake up and say: “I’m thankful for the good I’m going to experience today.” By knowing and accepting good in advance, you create space for it to occur in your life. The belief that you will experience good allows you to move through the world more positively, so you are the perfect conduit to receive good. This helps you start your day from a place of possibility, which is essential to a Prosperity mindset.

At Principia College, my alma mater, and Principia High School where my kids attend, they have “Thank-a-thons” where the kids just call donors to thank them. They don’t solicit or bring up a campaign or anything else, they just call and say thank you, leaving messages all Saturday morning long and speaking with anyone they happen to get on the phone. They simply call to say “thank-you,” and if the person is talkative, they may share what they are doing in school, which helps the donors know the difference their donations have made in the lives of students. This is the type of proactive gratitude that touches lives and enriches all participants.

Practicing an Attitude of Gratitude

Now that you know the importance of gratitude, how can you better adopt an attitude of gratitude in your daily life? Fortunately, there are many ways to give thanks, beyond simply saying the words. Below are some of our favorite ways to give thanks throughout the year.

Start Meals with Positive Focus

Positive focus is a term adopted from Strategic Coach, which lends specificity to your gratitude habit. For example, we start every Prosperity Thinkers team meeting with positive focus. Everyone takes turns sharing something they’re grateful for in their personal life, and something they’re grateful for in business. At training events, sometimes we ask for a positive focus from inside the training room, and one from outside the training room.

This encourages participants to think of something recent and specific. And remember to share your WHY. Why is this something you’re grateful for?

Practice in Moments of Waiting

In the waiting periods of life, practicing gratitude or positive focus can be a productive way to fill the time. This could be while you’re waiting in the grocery line, the moments before you enter a Zoom meeting, or any other small moment. The benefit of these moments is that you can make almost any activity even better. I don’t love grocery shopping, nor do I particularly enjoy waiting in line at the grocery store. Thinking of the good things in my life genuinely makes the experience more enjoyable, and puts me in a good mood for whatever is next in my day.

Look for the Silver Lining

As I hinted above, gratitude is also the perfect antidote to situations that aren’t as pleasant. You can also use gratitude as a way to look for the silver lining. If you’re on an unpleasant plane ride, for example, you may find comfort in something as basic as being grateful for the flight attendant, or your drink. You may not be able to make a negative situation into something perfect, yet you can certainly make it much easier to appreciate by allowing the negative aspects to fall out of focus.

The Importance of Gratitude in Everyday Life

If you’re looking for an easy way to emphasize the importance of gratitude in your life, we recommend going on a “news diet.” To do this, you simply replace the bad news with daily gratitude! Instead of reading the paper, write a list of things you are grateful for each day. Then write a list of all the good things you are looking forward to happening that day. Finally, write a thank-you note to one person (or more!) We use SendOut Cards to do this, it makes it easy for anyone to send a physical thank-you card in the mailbox from your computer!

We’ve watched as gratitude seems to literally create miracles, healing physical ailments, relationship challenges, and business problems. Giving thanks creates “predictable miracles,” if you will, because as we shift our own focus, our circumstances, our own bodies (how they react to stress, for instance) and even those around us often transform, too.

If you aren’t yet convinced of the power of gratitude, simply practice it, and we predict you will begin to experience these little miracles, too.

How We Are Giving Thanks Right Now

In the spirit of giving thanks, it seem prudent to share with you some of the biggest things we’re thankful for right now at Prosperity Thinkers. Of course, there are the “big things” we hope we NEVER take for granted! We never cease to be grateful for the blessings of our health, our family, and our alpacas (yes, we have alpacas! They provide us with a lot of happiness and joy, as well as warm fiber that I like to crochet into lap blankets and other goodies.)

We give thanks as well to our clients who give us fulfilling, meaningful, and profitable work. We are grateful for our whole team (virtual and local, even including family members) who help us “make it all happen.”

Additionally, we are celebrating gratitude for:

• The Currence app, which is going to help SO many people become better at saving money in an efficient and fun way. If you’d like an invite, please reach out to us at welcome@prosperitythinkers.com.
• Excellent BOOKS that help keep the Spirit of Love, Joy and Gratitude alive all year long:

Right now two of our favorites are:

Happy Stories: Real-Life Inspirational Stories from Around the World
by Will Bowen. This book carries the powerful message that it is not our circumstances that make us happy, but the alignment of our thoughts, words and actions to focus on happiness. Wonderful stories of people who have faced hardships and have chosen to achieve happiness through all matters of challenging circumstances.

Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders
by Joel Manby, who earned American’s respect on an episode of the feel-good reality show, Undercover Boss. Manby introduces us to the power of agape love in the workplace, based on years of leading thousands of men and women, as well as the compelling thesis that if love builds healthy relationships at home, why not use the same principles to build healthy relationships at work? Manby proves that leading with love is effective, even in business, and challenges leaders to allow integrity and faith to guide their decisions.

What Are You Giving Thanks For? What Are Your Favorite Gratitude Practices?

We invite you to share something you are grateful for in our comments section below, or share a favorite holiday tradition or Gratitude practice with our readers!

For more mindset tips and tricks, be sure to sign up for our Prosperity Action Pack. In addition to practices you can use to transform your money mindset, you’ll also learn powerful money methods to reach financial freedom.