Daily Gratitude: Happy Thanksgiving! Gratitude is a powerful force and I encourage you to express more of it in the coming year, not just one day. Perhaps that would be a good goal – daily expression of at least one thing you’re grateful for? Today I want to add more along the lines of putting positives in your life. It’s what you focus on that counts. Things may appear to be bad but as I’ve said so many times, there is always a seed of equivalent benefit in every adversity. I reiterate that you can develop this type of outlook by practicing finding the positives all around you every day. Look for them. Stuck in traffic? Look around you. What do you see? How do you interpret everything you’re seeing. A bit low on money? What are you learning from it? Is there someone you can ask for help? Is asking for help difficult for you? Then maybe your lesson is to learn how to ask. Take some time at the end of every day and look around you and just list all the positives. Make up your own games or challenges for you or your family trying to find a positive. You can write out a list of scenarios. Put them in a jar and your family can pick out a scenario and their task is to find as many positives as possible. The winner is the one with the most. It can be fun as well as habit forming. Whatever you do, just keep cranking out the positives.

Daily Gratitude: You can have love and hope while you’re being optimistic no matter what the circumstances. I’m sure you know people with devastating situations but they are still full of hope and optimism. If you’re like me, you shake your head and wonder how on earth they do it. I don’t have an answer other than that is their attitude abd they have mental habits they’ve cultivated for all their life. You can become like that if you work at it. Don’t wait until things go to pot before trying it though. Work on embedding those qualities now. I recommend a great book called “Think like a Winner” by Dr Staples. He shows you how to begin to incorporate it in your mind with specific techniques. It’s worth the effort.

Daily Gratitude: You all know about Vol State- my Tennessee race in July. Well, the wise meat wagon lady is always telling people to make sure they smile especially when things are not going so great. Smiling changes your chemicals by releasing endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. These are happy chemicals (yes it’s simplistic but if you want to know more you can look it up) so your mood will change and that’s what you want when you’re not feeling that great as frequently happens during the race. It works in life too. You can practice smiling and see how it works for you. If you do find it works then you can incorporate it into your everyday life! Smile – you don’t have to be on camera to smile.