Do you ever feel hypocritical when Thanksgiving rolls around and everyone starts being all grateful and doing good deeds?
Don’t get me wrong… I love an attitude of gratitude! The thing that feels icky is how it seems we just turn it “ON” when thanksgiving rolls around.
I always feel like ‘shouldn’t we have BEEN doing this‘?
This week, I had a little realization that caused a change of heart and it’s this:
Sometimes, it’s necessary to FOCUS or EMPHASIZE something good in order to make it a part of our daily life.
For example, a short-term diet can kickstart your transition to eating healthier. A one month diet doesn’t mean that healthy eating is only important one month out of a year.
Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights before beginning his ministry. But he didn’t stop there. He fasted at other times and encouraged us to fast as well.
related: Best Thank You Lord Quotes to Encourage a Thankful Heart
Sometimes, dedicating a short term period to doing something good awakens our desire to commit to a new positive lifestyle or motivates us to learn how to do something new which we can then continue to use in daily life.
So, I think it’s time to get rid of that icky feeling.
In fact, with a week to go until thanksgiving, let’s kick off a week of gratitude and give thanks for every single blessing that we have.
If you need a little inspiration for things to be thankful about (besides the usual “my parents” “my spouse” etc etc, I’ve got you.
Here are 30 ideas of things to be thankful for during this season of gratitude (that you may not have thought of):
List of Things To Be Thankful For
Be thankful for…
1| Persistent hope when things were terrible and the future looked bleak and pointless.
You could have given up but you didn’t.
2| The thousands of days you’ve lived up until now & the fact that you continue to wake up every morning.
3| The talents gifted to you at birth.
4| That comforting feeling of “home”.
5| The ability to enjoy food and drink.
6| Beauty and being able to see and appreciate it all around you-
a sunrise, falling leaves, art, people, etc
7| Second chances that you didn’t deserve
8| Laughter!
9| For the people that make the effort to be in your life.
10| All the lessons you’ve learned.
11| The times that you messed up but things still ended up working out (phew)!
12| Peace of mind.
13| Access to clean water!
14| The gift of crawling into bed and finding warmth on cold nights.
Related: How To Be More Positive (Even If You’re A Natural Pessimist)
15| Undeserved opportunities.
16| Seeing the fruit of your labor / the result of your hard work.
There are people that work and never see the benefits of that work. This is a blessing!
17| Healing – physically, spiritually and emotionally.
18| Growth. Being wiser and further along than you were last year.
19| The luxury that is internet and social media.
20| The mentors, coaches and teachers that have provided life-changing guidance along the way.
21| Being forgiven when you were in the wrong.
22| Your job!
23| The new discoveries that you’ve made.
24| That your favorite food was created or invented.
25| The actions of strangers that resulted in blessings for you.
26| Good memories.
27| Inspiration to create.
28| Faith in God that has survived trying times.
29| For actually surviving the hard times.
30| Finally, be thankful that you didn’t get certain things, people or opportunities that you thought you wanted but now know would have destroyed you.
Thank God for all his blessings, both big and small!
Bringing an ounce of positivity into this world should be encouraged and promoted at all costs. I hope that the next 7 days of gratitude teaches you that and inspires you to live your whole life with more gratitude.
And if I don’t get another chance to say it….
HAPPY THANKSGIVING LOVES!
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