Bitter or Grateful?

Subject: Bitter or Grateful?

2012 was a wonderful year in many ways; it was the year that I published Dare, Dream, Do, my first book; the year I published "Disrupt Yourself" in the Harvard Business Review; the year I started keynote speaking.

But...it was also a terrible year: my brother took his life, my husband was diagnosed with cancer (he's ok), there were financial setbacks and work had been terribly challenging.

Was I going to be bitter or grateful?

Fortunately, a few years prior I had given myself a challenge—to “blog” about something I was grateful for every day for 15 days. Day One was family—my husband, son and daughter. On Day Two I gave some love to clean running water, hot and cold. Good health and modern medicine to maintain it made an appearance on Day Three; I had just had surgery and the whole process was so safe and simple it seemed miraculous. By Day 15 I had covered the most obvious bases, but hadn’t come close to exhausting all the things I felt grateful for. As I harked back to this exercise it helped me choose gratitude and my better self. 

Bitterness is a form of self-sabotage, while studies tell us that being grateful makes us happier. Why? I love this from Wallace D. Wattles. Paraphrasing.... 

The law of gratitude is that action and reaction are always equal and in opposite directions (like physics). If your gratitude is strong and constant, the reaction is strong and continuous. The movement of the things you want will always be toward you. You cannot exercise much power without gratitude, because it is gratitude that keeps you connected to power. But the value does not consist solely of being more blessed with what you want in the future. Without gratitude you cannot keep from being dissatisfied with things as they are. Because as you focus on what you don't like, what you aren't grateful for, more of that comes to you too.Despite the obvious benefits, it isn’t always easy to be grateful, especially when a dream is deferred, derailed or dies. Disappointment is a repeat visitor in most people’s lives. No one is really an exception and being disappointed or in difficulty does not make us exceptional. Life lets us all down at times; what differentiates us as individuals is how we decide to move on from that. We need to acknowledge loss and mourn it—we can be mad, or sad, or both...for a time.

But then we choose. 

I'm learning that giving thanks for dreams that have (and have not) come true, is an antidote to bitterness, one that helps us survive and prevail—and happily so—in the life we do have.

Regardless of where you live and whether or not you might be celebrating Thanksgiving today as we are in the United States, thanksgiving is a state of mind and heart, not just a holiday. Giving thanks is good for the soul in every season of the year and of life. 

Whether you are on holiday this week or not, I hope you'll download the latest episode of the Disrupt Yourself Podcast. Our guest this week is former Disney executive and current CEO of The Hollis Co., Dave Hollis. He is in the middle of a huge disruption in his career, and I'm grateful we had the chance to chat while he's in the midst of it. 

Finally, to show gratitude to you for taking the time to show up and be part of this community, I'm gifting three memberships to the course we created earlier this year with Richie Norton - UNSTUCK45. If you want to increase your momentum going into 2019, you are going to love the videos and worksheets from this course. If that's you, hit reply and tell us something you are grateful for (it can be just one sentence!) and we'll draw three people from the replies at random next Wednesday.

Remember, said Charles Dickens, “There is always something for which to be thankful.”

My best,
Whitney

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