I am currently taking the 7 Day Prayer Challenge with Iyanla Vanzant through Hay House, and it’s awesome. I wish it was longer than 7 days. The energy coming from this course is so calming, centering, and spiritual. Today she talked about the one thing that I have found mentioned in every single course or book that I’ve read when it comes to personal development. The topic is gratitude. No matter whether it’s a business course or a prayer challenge, gratitude is brought up in some way. Following are 8 quotes on gratitude from various teaches and the courses I’ve taken with them.
1. It’s An Important Tool For Self Care
“Gratitude is one of the most overlooked methods of self-care.” – Iyanla Vanzant in The Prayer Challenge
In relation to the prayer challenge, Iyanla says that gratitude helps us to open our spiritual eyes and recognize and respect the perfect timing of things. I would say that’s a form of self-care in itself. When we can connect to something more than the worries around us, that’s self-care. When we can accept events as being exactly as they should be and let go of the need to have things our way all the time, that’s self-care.
2. Gratitude Is A Life Hack
“If you develop this skill to be able to drop into gratitude daily, it’s absolutely a life hack.” – Jon Butcher in Lifebook
Jon Butcher says that gratitude is the other side of the abundance coin because all abundance comes from inside. When you are grateful for what you have, it sets all the success in all your life categories up. He says that it’s a powerful spiritual practice to include in your spiritual life.
Missy Butcher says that she does her gratitude routine in the morning because it sets her up for a good day. Instead of waking up thinking about what she has to do in the day, she wakes up and starts to give thanks.
Missy also says that gratitude is like prayer. You can do it at any time and anywhere and nobody knows you are doing it if you don’t want them to, but it helps adjust your attitude and, subsequently, benefit your life.
3. Gratitude Can Help With Stress And Anxiety
“Focusing on gratitude can result in greater optimism, higher goal achievement, increased levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, and energy.” – Paul Mckenna in Everyday Bliss
I can attest to this! Gratitude is the one thing that can quickly pull me out of a stressful or anxious mood. Being able to focus on what feels good and ramp up my gratitude as I do, helps me to let go of worry, fear, sadness, and all those other negative emotions.
If you want to move from a lower emotion to a higher one – just like Christie Marie Sheldon talks about in Love or Above, gratitude can help you do that.
4. Gratitude Helps All Good Things Grow In Your Life
“Gratitude… think of it like this, if your dream is the seed and action is the water to grow the seed… gratitude is the fertilizer that makes it grow sooner, quicker, faster.” – Lisa Nichols In Speak And Inspire
Lisa Nichols says that when you have an energy of gratitude, it grows all the things that you love. Gratitude helps all the good things get better and even multiply in your life.
Lisa also says that gratitude helps you through the dark times. She says that gratitude works as a healing tool during times of darkness. If you can find things to be grateful for, you can start to heal.
5. Gratitude Is A Free And Effective Medicine
“When we often want to get happy, what do we do? We go to a pharmacy and we buy brand name medicine like Prozac designed to make us happy. Why is it that we don’t use this concept of gratitude which is free and far more effective.” – Vishen Lakhiani in Be Extraordinary
Vishen has a whole section on gratitude in his course. He talks about the science behind gratitude, how to practice it, and gives a guided gratitude practice.
In short, he recommends gratitude to be extraordinary, and he says that just because gratitude doesn’t have a large funding promoter behind it doesn’t mean it’s not as effective as the medication we get pushed to go on when we are feeling down.
Vishen also says that we tend to underestimate things when they are free and easy and put too much value on things that cost money. He says it’s important to see past that illusion and recognize that gratitude is a magic pill – and it’s free.
6. Gratitude Allows Us To Create Our Own Happiness
“Gratitude allows us to find happiness inside us and not from anyone or anything else.” – Naveen Jain in The Power Of Boldness
If you want to stop depending on other people to make you happy, then gratitude is your ticket.
Naveen Jain talks about the abundance mindset in his course and how developing it can help you to create a moonshot goal that makes you want to jump out of bed every morning. Gratitude is one of the things he recommends for creating that abundance mindset and boosting your happiness and faith in your ability to go after what you want.
You will need that when it comes to moonshot ideas because other people are not always going to be optimistic or excited for you like you want them to be.
7. Gratitude Is A Muscle That Can Help You Be A Hero, Genius, And Legend
“Gratitude is a muscle. The more you celebrate your blessings, the stronger your muscle is. – Robin Sharma in Hero, Genius, Legend
Robin Sharma says that gratitude is one habit that can help you to become a hero, genius, and legend. He says that gratitude is an antidote to fear, which is something that will stand in the way of you being who you can be.
8. Adjust The Information You Are Taking In
“Gratitude lists start shifting the information you are talking in.” Steven Kotler In The Habit Of Ferocity
If you want to be more ferocious in your life, then gratitude can help with that too. Steven Kotler talks about the gap between thought and emotion and how gratitude can stop you from getting lost in negative thoughts and emotions and be more productive in your life.
Steven Kotler says that gratitude forces your brain to look at things you are grateful for so that your inner bullshit detector doesn’t go off constantly. In other words, your brain looks for positive information over negative information and, while doing that, keeps you from getting lost in unhelpful and wasteful energy.
The List Goes On And On
Every single book or course I’ve taken talks about gratitude in one way or another. It comes with a multitude of benefits that help you stay focused, stay happy, and stay well.
Iyanla was talking about a gratitude chart today, so, on Canva, I quickly made one up inspired by hers. It’s nothing fancy. It’s not super uniform. It just has enough lines or spaces in it to fill up 31 days worth of gratitude. Some spaces are bigger and some are smaller. I made it so that you can just start wherever you want and write in between the lines. But as she says, as you fill in each line, that’s when things will get exciting.
If you want to download this gratitude sheet for yourself, you can do that here.
