Do you know someone who’s always getting in their own way and sabotaging their success?
Heck, maybe at some point along the way, this was you.
Usually, self-sabotage comes from a lack of gratitude.
Gratitude means being grateful. And it’s an emotion that’s extremely powerful, has many layers and levels, and must be practiced.
We’re certainly not born with the ability to experience gratitude. And as we navigate the many challenges of life, our ability to experience it will be dulled. We must take time – every day – to sharpen our gratitude muscles.
One of my coaches and mentors recently did a training on the 5 Levels of Gratitude. It was one of the most impactful trainings I’ve ever attended.
Here they are:
Level 1: No gratitude. You’re so stuck in negative thoughts that you can’t even recognize things you should be grateful for.
Level 2: Recognize and record things and people you’re grateful for. It helps to do this every day, so you are prepared for reaching the next level.
Level 3: Gratitude for what’s coming. This is higher-level thinking. It’s the ability to experience gratitude in advance … to be grateful for something that hasn’t happened yet, but that you know is coming. There’s a quote that goes with this level of gratitude that I love: “If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand.”
Level 4: Appreciation for what we don’t prefer. It takes a long time and a lot of work to get to this point, but once you do, life becomes so much easier. Once you accept that the world is always working for you, you can be grateful when things “don’t work out” … because you know they always do. Any circumstances you don’t prefer are not “the end of the world” or “a disaster.” They’re simply a necessary step in the achievement of your greatest success and happiness.
Level 5: There’s no such thing as good or bad. There are no problems. To call something a problem is your choice. In a nutshell, experiences have no meaning until we assign a meaning to them. We get to decide what that meaning is.
So if you don’t like the results you’re getting, reverse engineer them and figure out what thinking is causing them … and what beliefs created that thinking.
Practice being grateful, and do it every day. Be grateful for what you have, grateful for what’s coming soon, and grateful for circumstances you don’t prefer.
Finally, understand that you and you alone control the meaning of your experiences.
It takes some time, work and consistency … but wouldn’t you agree that changing your outcomes to those you like and prefer would be so worth it?