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The 30-Day Challenge to A More Positive Perspective

kim@wavesofgratitude.

kim@wavesofgratitude.com.

Best regards

Cheryl Nordyke
http://www.wavesofgratitude.com

The 30-Day Challenge to A More Positive Perspective
I had the privilege of attending a graduation party for a
friend of ours that just completed her master's course
after the wonderful age of 40. Exact age will be withheld
because she doesn't look or act her age. As I mingled with
people mostly of higher educational backgrounds, I realized
how cynical the world we live in truly is. I also
discovered how little faith we have in others and
ourselves. This wasn't anything directed at any single
person or this exact situation just an overall feeling. I
realized I was able to remain grateful in spite of the
negativities in the world, but I had to make a conscious
effort.

My business partners and I are close to our one-year
anniversary of charting a course with our lives that would
allow us to define how our days are spent and what our
priorities are. For example, up until recently I had no
idea the value of a pool in the summer because I was never
home before 6:30 p.m. having left the house at 6:30 a.m.
Now that I can have charge over my own schedule I can make
time during the day for such activities as swimming. I
have gained something that cannot be purchased. I am able
to take my daughter to school this year before she gets her
license and no longer needs me to drive her. Now I can go
to all her sporting events and cheer her on as well as
celebrate the wins with her and her friends.

Today I realized there were moments in my past that I was
just as cynical and negative toward anyone that thought
life could be lived outside the corporate structure. Not
today. After being eliminated from a company at which I
gave all my time and helped generate millions of dollars in
revenue by establishing new products and relationships, I
now know the only thing that stopped me from doing this for
myself was myself. When faced with unemployment for the
first time in my life I realized I was actually quite
lucky. I was capable of going out into the world and
making for myself and my partners the same opportunities I
had been making for my previous employer. My departure had
no impact on them to the outside world, and if it did
inside those walls nobody knew it. So why would I let them
have any impact on me especially any negative impact? Why
would I question my skills or abilities when they never
bothered to? I took a very negative situation and found
reasons to be grateful. In a very negative world with gas
prices up and the economy down we are constantly bombarded
with all that is wrong with the world and our lives. If
you think it is so bad in the United States, consider this:

- In Norway the cost of gas is over $7.00 per gallon and
yet our gas, while it may be at $4, that is only an average
of $1.00 more than a year ago. It is still less than in
Europe.

- While unemployment rates may be above 5% we are still not
the worst country. Additionally, there are still jobs
posted in all the newspapers every week.

- Those of you living in the U.S., regardless of your
address, are not woken by air attacks in the middle of the
night.

- The sun will rise and set and with it the most priceless
beauty freely to observe.

- While some may find life isn't as easy as others we at
least have life. I know too many that died too young.

Now you ask, what is the point I am trying to make with
this article? Here it is. Life to each of us holds
different challenges and opportunities. That isn't the
real thing that separates us. What separates each one of
us from everyone else is how we approach each day and all
it brings. In a cynical world we can jump on board and
join everyone else. In a world that constantly tells us
how bad things are we can buy into it and find worse
circumstances to add to it. That is our choice.

The 30-day plan my partners and I used went as follows: We
each wrote in a journal each day for 30 days. One day one,
we wrote one thing we were grateful for. It was difficult
to select just one. Then on day two, we wrote two things;
day three we wrote three things and so on. Each day we
added one more until we got to day 30 and a list of 30
things we were grateful for in that single day. It doesn't
matter if you are grateful for the same thing on more than
one day. Just try it. Write them down. Then when 30 days
have passed look back and see if maybe the way you see the
world has also changed. It is possible to stay positive in
a negative world.

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