If you can't appreciate what you have right now, what makes you think you can handle more? This is what the keynote speaker said 26 years ago that altered my life. At the time, I didn't appreciate my life, and I wanted so much more. I had an insatiable desire for a better life, and it was firmly irritating the life I had.
It's no surprise because bad feelings always hold you back.
Fear, doubt, irritation, worry- these all hold you in the past. They hold up the journey towards what you want. Until you can relieve some of this emotional currency, you are stuck.
Appreciating what you do have, creates more of what you want. When you focus on things you enjoy, you attract more of this in life. Like a magnet, appreciation reaches out and pulls in more wonderful things like it.
A simple mindset of appreciation can alleviate the tension between what you have and what you want. Gratitude and appreciation can close the gap between where you are and where you want to be by relieving irritation and doubt.
It’s easier to look at something that exists right now than to feel good about something that doesn’t exist.
Personally, I find it easier to adore something random that I don't own or owe money on. It's simpler because I'm less attached. Below are a couple of appreciation routines that can really catapult you forward. If these seem simple or playful and too easy, this means they are working.
Appreciation is never hard- conflict and doubt are hard. If you find yourself in the propensity to judge or shrug off these activities, you know they would be helpful.
Relieve doubt and worry- appreciate instead.
How to Do Appreciation
Your ability to appreciate is available at any time. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances of your life are like. You can be drowning in debt and teetering on financial demise, yet if you stop and appreciate a flower, joy can flow in you.
If you can savour the feelings of Joy- you move up the emotional, vibrational scale. Sustain that good feeling vibration long enough, and you attract more of it. You climbed out of fear, worry and doubt and into your life.
Anytime you find yourself fledging around in Worry, Disappointment or Doubt, you can try a hail mary pass directly into your current life through appreciation. Sometimes it works. If you can let the beauty of life in front of you overwhelm you with positive joy, you climb into that life. Worry and doubt naturally give way if Joy is strong enough.
Climb out of the trenches of doubt and elevate directly into Joy. Always look forward and focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want , and you will feel better.
Spend time appreciating the moment, several times a day.
Pick anything at all in your environment that you appreciate , and with curiosity, observe it. Don’t try to force yourself to hold it in high regard. Just notice it. Engage your senses to find the NOW. For instance, spend a few seconds appreciating a flower. If it helps, label the flower beautiful. Notice its colour, shape, smell, how it blows precariously in the wind but seems to be largely unaffected.
Notice how its movement casts shadows on the soil beneath it. Notice good feelings flowing inside your chest. That’s it. For that few seconds, you were in the moment enjoying that flower. You are nurturing positive feelings, the inner inferno that moves you forward.
Do this several times a day. Pretty soon, you will notice good feelings sticking around for a while. You will notice a vibrancy inside you that seems to catch on fire and propel you forward. Now you are headed in the right direction- towards the life you want.
It didn't take effort, hustle or goal setting to move forward- it simply took feeling good.
