When the end of the year rolls around, my thoughts turn to clarifying my goals for the year to come — both professional and personal. Part of the process is reflecting on what’s been accomplished this year, which inevitably leads me to feeling grateful for so many things.
But the question is, can being grateful help grow your business?
The answer is a definite YES. Here’s why …
What’s really happening when we’re being grateful is our thoughts, ultimately our minds, are focusing on the positive. This conscious positivity works its way into two very powerful places:
- Inward into our subconscious
- And out into the Universe
These thoughts become the words we speak and have a huge impact on the actions we take, which all adds up to manifesting the reality we live in.
“What you are thinking about, you are becoming.” — Muhammad Ali
Think about the last time you were feeling gloom and doom. Did that permeate through your day? Your interactions? Your engagement with your work? Although we’re focusing on being grateful here, what we’re really talking about is filling our minds with positive thoughts and input.
No, I’m not saying we should brainwash ourselves, or pretend that our problems aren’t real. What I’m suggesting is that we do our best to keep our perspective on the positive side — which is no small task when we’re feeling overwhelmed, disappointed or depressed.
In the end, as a very basic example, the person who’s positive about attaining a sales goal is much more likely to attain it than the person who feels it’s impossible.
So how do we do this? How to we remove negative thoughts that cram into our heads? Simple … we kick them out one thought at a time. And then we replace the negative thought with a positive one.
This could be a thought of gratitude about how much business we’ve had this year, instead of being bummed about not having more business. It could be thinking “I can,” in the face of feeling like you can’t.
In most cases, doing this once or twice won’t change much. But start doing it every day, mindfully, and over time you will see your business — and your life — transform.
I’d like to leave you with two tasks to complete — right now:
- Identify what you’re most grateful for this year. Write it down. Share it with at least one person.
- Identify the most powerful, recurring negative thought you have. You might have this thought daily, hourly, whatever. Now, write down the exact opposite — using only positive words. Make this your mantra. Whenever you have the negative thought, immediately kick it out of your head and replace it with the positive one you’ve just created. Do this EVERY TIME you have the thought until it’s been defeated — I promise you’ll be grateful that you did.
Happy Holidays from Cuppa SEO. May your New Year be filled with success!
Excellent article Joey! Focusing on the positive doesn’t mean ignoring challenges, but reframing them in a way that encourages action. Negativity tends to lead to poor decision making and inaction. Thanks for sharing!
Well said, Barbara! You’re very welcome.