When things go wrong, Practice Gratitude

3 mins read • Written by Aaruthra • 21st September 2022

When everything is falling apart, our usual responses are anger, frustration, blame and even sometimes having an overwhelming fear to figure things out.

And it sounds ridiculously inappropriate to practice ‘Thankfulness’ or ‘Gratitude’ at such tough times. But have you once tried it? Being Grateful is more than a habit and it is a way of life.

What is Gratitude?

Gratitude means Being Thankful.

Okay……
What it has to do with situations when everything is going south?

When something negative happens, as human beings our innate reaction is to express a negative feeling – Like Anger, Break down, Fear, blame-game etc., It is like negative things that start to pile-up and your mind takes off spiralling downwards at Top speed :p.
Have you ever started your day feeling MAD and surprisingly everything that follows falls apart and makes you more mad throughout the day?
It is because we focus on a negative thing and respond with a negative emotion, it gets on a spiralling loop.
You cannot influence the situation that happens, so the only way to end the loop is by replacing your NEGATIVE REACTION with a POSITIVE one which will put an end to the negative downward spiral.

Makes sense, but how!?

Of course it isn’t easy to simply start thinking positive. ‘God’sake for what do I thank this mess!?’ I hear you!
So you simply FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT.
You try your best to appreciate all the things that you have got and that helped you.

For example poor sales can be seen as:

‘Yes, the sales were rough at the exhibit, but I’m so grateful that my family and friends supported me immensely!
For the wonderful clients who loved my products
At least I had the opportunity to show up at this exhibit
Glad that this experience helps me focus and try different marketing and selling strategies.

You get the gist of it right?

By shifting your focus to the good things you subconsciously start focusing on the positives and you are saved from hours of negative rut and you would ofcourse attract much positive things from there.

And yeah, I got a Wholesale order after a couple days of exhibit and it overtook the initial sales target I had in mind. So yea I believe it works!

What about this Gratitude Journal thing?

You can practice gratitude in different ways, Pair it up with meditation, or your journaling routine or just take 5 mins off your day at night to just be thankful for the things from the day.

I have a small section in my Daily Planner that asks for ‘One nice thing that happened today’ which makes it easier to just focus on the good thing from that day as we tend to call the whole day bad because one bad incident happened and we forget the 20 good things.

Practicing gratitude on a daily basis makes it easier to have positive response during tough times but you can start practicing it slowly, starting today!

Takeaway!

When something screws up, accept that something bad has happened, but that is not in your control, your reaction towards it is what matters the most.

Let me know what you think about practicing gratitude and if there is any story you would like to share! Would love to hear from you on my Instagram / email inbox!

Have a great day!

Cheers!

Aaruthra