Be Thankful for Your Blessings: 5 Ways to Practice a Daily Appreciation Ritual - By Jack Canfield

The practice of giving thanks is commemorated today in America as a national holiday. But if you want to live an abundant life, appreciation shouldn't be confined to a solitary day. It should be incorporated into your daily living.

Appreciation is one of the highest emotional states you can be in. It is the state of abundance. The Law of Attraction states that like attracts like. If you are grateful for what you have already received, you will attract more for which you can be grateful.

Many people find that it requires great diligence to cultivate an attitude of appreciation. We are culturally conditioned to focus on what we don't have, rather than appreciating what we've already received.

"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread."- Mother Teresa, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Appreciate the Smallest Blessings:

Activate your gratitude by acknowledging the gifts most people take for granted.

If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes in your closet and a roof over your head, you are better off than 75 percent of the world's population.

If you eat three meals a day, you are far better off than the 1 billion people on the planet who eat once a day at most. Celebrate these simple blessings.

Do you have a phone? Be grateful – millions don't. How about a car that allows you to travel to work or to explore the country? Is your family healthy? Do you have a computer and Internet access to stay in touch with the world, get access to education, and perform work for which you are paid? Do you have clean water to drink? These daily conveniences are gifts that most people in the world do not enjoy.

Daily Appreciation Habits:

Here are five easy ways to make appreciation part of your daily routine:

1. Take 7 minutes each morning to write down all you appreciate in life. Starting your day this way primes you to be receptive and grateful for everything your day will bring.

2. Appreciate at least 3 people every day. Most people enjoy receiving verbal appreciation. But written notes are also nice because they can be saved and re-read.

3. Play the Appreciation Game. As the saying goes, "Every cloud has a silver lining." Look for the good in all situations. When my wife was in a car accident a few years ago, she could have chosen to berate herself or question her judgment. Instead, she focused on her gratitude for suffering only minor injuries and for the help she received from other drivers.

4. Carry a physical token of gratitude in your pocket, such as a stone, crystal or some other small item. As you reach into your pocket throughout the day and feel the token, use it as a reminder to stop, breathe and take a moment to fully experience the emotion of gratitude.

5. Appreciate yourself. We all need acknowledgment, but the most important acknowledgment is what we give ourselves. In addition to celebrating your big successes, acknowledge your small daily successes too. During this month's Ask Jack call, I assigned the Mirror Exercise as homework. Your subconscious mind needs positive encouragement to pursue further achievements and to change any negative beliefs you hold toward praise and accomplishment. This powerful exercise requires you to appreciate yourself for the day's accomplishments while talking to yourself in a mirror.

It may not feel natural at first to focus on appreciating what you already have. But by faithfully practicing the Daily Appreciation Habits outlined in this article, you'll begin to change your conditioning.

Giving thanks should be more than an occasional exercise once year. Let it become a daily discipline that allows you to attract more of what you want from life. I invite you to experiment with this discipline over the next 30 days and watch your blessings multiply!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry