When was the last time you stopped at looked at your life; I mean really looked at it? Too often nowadays it's easy to get caught up in the flow of busyness without even knowing what we are busy doing, let alone how it's going to benefit anyone. Sometimes we need to take a step off the treadmill and just look at ourselves, just appreciate our lives and realise how fortunate we are.
Let's see - I'm sitting outside writing this on my laptop, it's an Apple MacBook and I've got my BlackBerry Torch by my side. It's a beautiful day and I'm in very good health. I'm sitting looking out at our house and garden and can see our chickens and our dog basking in the morning sun. I'm privileged to have two great careers - medicine and coaching. I love the challenges of General Practice and still learn something new from it every day. I earn reasonable money and am free from debt. I've got a wonderful partner and two great kids. I have a lovely family and some great friends and colleagues. I'm lucky enough to live in England and so enjoy free speech, free healthcare, clean water, sanitation and all the many other priviliges of life in a developed country. I could go on for ages and so could you I'm sure but the point is, we don't need to. How long did it take for me to mentally list those things? Thirty seconds, maybe a minute? How great did it make me feel to think about them though? Absolutely wonderful!
For me, the root of all achievement is being grateful for what you already have. It's realising that you already have so much to be grateful for that gets you into the mindset to achieve even more. Not only that but it ensures that you appreciate those things when you achieve them. I'm sure that you have friends, as I have, who live their lives at breakneck speed, collecting "stuff" and seemingly never allowing themselves the time to enjoy it.
Why not slow down and step back, just briefly, to mentally run through what's great about your life. Do it first thing in the morning, maybe whilst you brush your teeth? If you ask yourself each morning what's really great about your life then you deliberately create such a powerfully positive state in yourself that believe me, you're ready for anything by the time you get out of that door! Of course you're not restricted to that time, it's never to early to start being grateful - so why not start right now?
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