WHAT IF… Just For Today
"WHAT IF today, we were just grateful for everything?"
Have YOU ever had one full day where you were grateful...for EVERYTHING?
If so, I want to hear about it. Seriously. I do.
I want to hear about it... and I want to have a day where I'm grateful for everything.
Being completely honest with you (and with me), I can't say that has EVER happened... at least not YET.
I recorded a GEM about doing this — being grateful for everything just for today. (If you don't know, you can hear that under the LISTEN section of the Grateful App.)
I set that quotation to drop as the Daily Gratitude for today.
Guess what happened?
I overslept today. Later than I've slept on a weekday morning in a long, long time.
Sadly, my very first thought of the day wasn't, "WOW, I'm grateful for sleeping so good that I slept late."
No, it wasn't.
Instead, there was some shaming of myself for getting off schedule and missing some of my beloved early morning hours.
And then, I opened the Grateful App and saw the post... the post I wrote.
Then... I PAUSED.
And wondered,
WHAT IF TODAY — just this one day — I will be grateful for everything?
After all, people call me the World's Gratitude Coach...and yet, I've never gone a full day being grateful for everything!
My next thought...
It’s not too late.
So, what if from this moment forward, I make it my aspiration… my desire to BE GRATEFUL FOR EVERYTHING… today.
Truly, I realize I have never gone through a full day being grateful for everything. There’s always something that trips me up, throws me off — quite honestly frustrates me or pisses me off.
**And yet, I know there is a dramatic difference, when I live with the intention or the aspiration to receive and process everything that comes into my life through the lens of gratitude.**
So, for today, I aspire to be grateful for everything.
I set that intention at the beginning of the day, having no idea what things:
May come my way today
May excite me today
May frustrate me today
May trigger me
Who may disappoint me
Who may cut me off in traffic
I might spill something
I might break something
I might goof something us
But still, I set an aspiration that I want to process it all — the good, the not-so-good, and the downright yucky — through the lens of gratitude.
So, what would it take for me, for you, to go through a full day one solid day of life receiving everything gratefully?
I don't really know. But I have learned the power of experimentation.
What if, we make this an experiment? To go one complete day being grateful for everything?
As I write this, I wonder...
Am I revealing too much of my self. Am I the only person on the planet that struggles to be grateful for everything that comes my way in life for one single day?
Yikes! If I am, then I'm certainly not qualified to be the World's Gratitude Coach.
But, if I'm not the only person with this struggle and I am the World's Gratitude Coach, and I let people know that I struggle to "be grateful for everything"… then certainly that means there's hope for YOU...and for me?
Right.
I don’t think I'm the only person with this struggle. But maybe I am.
What does it mean to be grateful for everything?
Candidly, I’m not even sure I know. Seriously, friends, I’m not sure if I know.
You don't have to be overly optimistic or oblivious to reality to be thankful for everything. Bad things happen to good people all the time, but gratitude is still important.
Read the headlines from any given day, any given week, and you’re fine plenty of bad stuff (I could use another word there) happening.
And yet... we can still be grateful.
Please don't ground your gratitude in comparing yourself and your situation to others... only to what could have been for you.
So, for today, from 9:19 forward, I aspire to be grateful for everything.
It’s a way of being, and it impacts how I see, how I process, and how I respond to everything.
It’s a choice. It’s my choice.
I’m wondering what will happen. And after living with this intention today and seeing how it goes…who knows, I might try it again tomorrow. And then the day after that.
This is not without challenges. And if I fall or if I fail — guess what? I’ll pick myself up — let it go that I lost my way and get back on track and reset my aspiration.
Care to join me? Let's give it a try and see what happens.
Would you mind sharing your experiences with the group? I'll share mine.