start monday with gratitude

Think of something you achieved in your past. It doesn’t have to be something huge, but it shouldn’t be something too small either.

When you look back at that achievement, can you remember how you celebrated reaching that achievement? Indeed, did you celebrate reaching that achievement or did you swiftly move on to the next to-do, to-achieve on your list?

If you celebrated reaching your achievement, relive that celebration in your memory and give thanks to that younger version of yourself who honoured you for reaching that achievement.

If you didn’t celebrate your achievement, how do you think the younger version of you would have enjoyed celebrating it?

Describe what that younger version of you would have enjoyed as means of a celebration and enjoy that celebration today.

It’s never too late to celebrate our achievements.

Think of something you achieved in your past. It can be the same achievement as yesterday or something different. Whatever you feel most drawn to.

When you focus on that achievement here today, are you focusing only on the end result, the actual achievement? Or does your mind taken you through every step you took in order to reach that achievement?

For most of us when we look back, we only focus on the achievement itself. And by doing so, we wrongly give more weight to the end result, forgetting just how much we dedicated to reaching that end result, just how much we changed and grew in the whole process from beginning to end.

So, today I want you to cast your mind back and try to remember as many steps of the process as possible from the first step you took towards achieving that dream or goal, right through until you achieved it.

Celebrate every step you took because without each step you would have never achieved what you did.

Think of someone you deem to be successful. It could be someone you know personally or someone famous.

What part of their success have you seen, witnessed, experienced? The part where they became successful, and afterwards? Or also the part before they became successful?

Most of us only see people’s success and that’s why most people believe in the concept of “overnight success”. Few, usually only those really close to the person, see the whole journey they took, the path they walked before they reached their achievement of success.

I want you to take that person in your mind and re-create their journey to success.

You probably won’t be able to do this in reality as you won’t have access to all the facts and information, so you’ll have to imagine their journey.

However, even through imagining you’ll be able to better grasp the path they may have walked.

Imagine what bumps and obstacles they may have experienced along the way.

Imagine the work and effort they put in in the background.

Imagine the length of time it took them to reach success.

Can you appreciate that no-one ever achieves overnight success and that simply focusing on the final achievement, that you actually miss out on the majority of the journey that got them there?

Do you have a new-found appreciation and admiration for this person?

Can you thank them, in your head, for helping you understand the importance of expressing gratitude every step of the way along your journey and not just when you reach your destination?

Think of something you deem small and insignificant that you accomplished in the past; something that, if someone had asked you about it, you might have said, “Ohhh… it was nothing” or “it was easy”.

No doubt when you accomplished whatever that was, at the time you didn’t express much gratitude for your ability to accomplish it with ease. Because when things come easy to us, we often dismiss them as an accomplishment.

However, just because you found it easy, just because it was “no biggie” to you doesn’t mean to say everyone would feel the same way.

Your gifts are your gifts and not everyone shares them.

So, today, I want you to go back to that tiny accomplishment and give it the gratitude it deserves, give yourself the praise you deserve, be thankful for your abilities and gifts.

Take yesterday's tiny accomplishment and break it down into the many steps you had to take to achieve it.

Because it was a seemingly tiny accomplishment, you may not only have failed to celebrate your accomplishment at the time, you probably would have also glossed over the steps you had to follow in order to accomplish it, or the gifts and skills you had to put to use to achieve it.

Break your accomplishment down into every tiny step and detail until you can appreciate that it actually wasn’t a tiny accomplishment.

Then give thanks for your ability, skills, gifts, knowledge that enabled you to achieve this.

What goal, what achievement are you currently working towards?

We all have achievements and dreams we are working towards every single day, otherwise we would never change, grow and expand as human beings.

Sometimes the goal or achievement we’re working towards is small, sometimes it’s epic and life changing.

What goal or achievement are you currently working towards? When did you start working towards this goal? How far along, do you think, are you on your journey towards this achievement?

How much have you celebrated and expressed gratitude for every step of your journey?

Have you, for example, sat down every single evening, looked at what you achieved in relation to your goal that day, and expressed gratitude for how far you’ve come and what you have already accomplished in relation to this achievement?

If you haven’t yet expressed gratitude for where you are in this journey and where you have come, spend some time doing so now.

Now that you’ve ‘caught up’ on your gratitude in relation to a current goal or achievement, I invite you to look ahead; look to the steps ahead of you, the steps that stand between where you are now and achieving this goal.

Write down those steps, no matter how small, and give gratitude for having the ability, the knowledge, the gifts and skills to complete each step.

Now add a note beside each step describing how you plan to express your gratitude and celebrate that step.

Some steps will be larger than others and their celebration may be greater. However, it’s important to appreciate all steps in the process, not only the large ones that you easily find ways to celebrate.