An Attitude of Gratitude

In order to make your dreams come true it is important that you follow your passion. It is also important that you follow your passion having clear goals. Your goals will become a reality if you are willing and ready to work hard with perseverance.

Perseverance is striving and trying with unfailing acts of patient effort. It indicates that continuos toil, exertion, strain, drudgery, travail, and work be applied, activated, practiced, put use, and adjusted. To persevere means that you try and try again. It means that you don’t stop until what you sought and worked for is accomplished. It means that you don’t stop until you are successful. When you try hard enough and long enough and your efforts don’t produce your aim, then perseverance implies that your efforts be adjusted. Try again another way, then another, and another. Practice until whatever it is that you want to accomplish is achieved, until it is completed, until you have reached success.

It is imperative that as you persevere you avoid feeling sorry for yourself when you goals seem as though they aren’t being accomplished. Keep a positive attitude. It is easy for negative thinking to be transformed into self-pity. It is easy to get stuck in self-pity and wallow in it. In order to avoid wallowing in self-pity; don’t focus on the bad. Don’t focus on the things that have not happened yet. When you get caught up in self-pity, you lose your perspective. Don’t focus on those things for which you have no control. Above all, avoid the trap of comparing yourself and your life to others. Don’t focus on how much better someone else appears to be doing.

You can get caught up in the trap of self-pity very quickly and without being conscious of it. If this happens then shift your perspective. Look around you. Think about those things for which you can be grateful. Life can always be worse. Consider the things you have in your life, the things that have gone well for you that you have taken for granted. Think about those things that others would love to have, to be, or to be able to do that you have and are able to do.

Another way to shift your perspective is to do something for someone in need. Visit a sick relative, assist a helpless neighbor, volunteer at a food pantry to feed people who have no food. Take a bag lunch and a blanket to a homeless person living on the street with no shelter from the rain. Visit the hospital and read a story to a child who has no legs, no arms, or who is dyeing from a terminal disease. Think about your blessings, count them and thank God for them one by one.

Just get up and get moving. Put one foot in front of the other, then again, and again, and again. Keep doing this until you have built a momentum. You will find that there is no room for self-pity to dwell with you. Soon the debilitating trap will flee and your efforts will be fruitful again.

The following 10 things helps me keep a positive attitude as I  try daily to work hard and  persevere.

1. I try to smile and find something in every circumstance.  I try to find something to  laugh about, I try to enjoy the good in this very difficult and challenging  life. There is good and bad every person's life. Identify the good in yours and rejoice for it.

2. After I  have "prayed up" and thanked God for what good there is in my life, and praised Him for his goodness, I do what I find difficult for me, I get out and mingle with people greeting them courteously. I try to be enthusiastic even when I may not be up to it.  I find that enthusiasm permeates me when I allow it.  Call a friend or relative, but not to complain about your life, instead to offer encouragement and your help.

3. I think about my  goals. Dream, aim high, and engage in thoughts that help you see your success.  "Think" life to yourself, to your dreams, to your desires and aspirations. I "think" life, and it is very difficult sometimes, but I am learning to change my thoughts.  I am learning to dwell on what is good instead of what is wrong.

4. I try not ot  make excuses.  I try to be open to Aadjust my plans, act on them, and work them.  I put forth effort and direct that effort to getting things done instead of putting too much focus on why things can't be done, and if I need to, I ask for help from a friend or an expert  Don't be afraid to ask for help so that things can get done.

5. I make an attempt to Bbe focused and single minded as I work. I love my work.  Be dedicated, disciplined and committed. Appreciate what you do, love your work.

6. Strive for excellence but be humble and open-minded about it. Be open to change and don’t be afraid to take risks.

7. It is sometimes difficult to judge others.  Don’t be judgmental of others.  It is more often difficult to forgive, especially when someone has clearly hurt you, continues to hurt you, and does is with intention and forethought.  Learn to forgive and forget. Develop a loving attitude. Be sympathetic and compassionate to others.  This is a hard one, but if I can forge through the garbage people have done to me, I can forgive and it makes me more compassionate, sympathethic, and causes me to have a good attitude and  a big smile on my face.

8. Through hardship and a whole lot of pain, I have learned to accept adversity and disappointment. I do though, have a long way to go.   Lean to overcome them as you come out feeling stronger. Whether good or bad, let every experience be a learning experience.

9.  I find that I can't fix what is wrong with me until I admit that it is wrong with me.  I am still learning to be my own judge, to examine myself inside and out.  When there is a difficulty I try to look at my part in causing the harm.  My father used to ask me all the time, "What did you learn?"  There is learning in every situation. Be your own critic. Recognize your faults and your mistakes, acknowledge them and strive for self- improvement.

10. Keep your face and focus on God, live each day performing good in which he can appreciate. Train yourself to have an attitude of gratitude at all times. I am still working on this one too, but I am getting better everyday.

Don't take life for granted; make each day count. Tell your love ones you love then everyday, and don't take silly arguments to bed, or through the day. The scripture tells us to not allow the sun to go down on our wrath. Simply put, forgive before the day is over, and don't go to bed mad. Take nothing for granted, not even for a split second! After you have finished watching this poor man's experience, think about this. What do you have for which to be thankful? How many blessings can you count?

After you have counted your blessings and have shown God an attitude of gratitude, pray for someone else today.