We have just celebrated the day of Thanksgiving in the United States, when most all American families gathered together to eat turkey with all the trimmings.

But the celebration of Thanksgiving is a whole lot more than eating turkey. It is a season when you most likely took time to stop and reflect on all of the things you are grateful for. It is always good to respond to that sense of gratitude and express it with thanksgiving.

However, real thanksgiving is not just a season, but rather an expression of gratitude that should always be a part of our lives.

Gratitude and thanksgiving is an essential part of the life style of every successful person.

Gratitude and being thankful will help you focus on the positive.
Gratitude is very powerful because it is a very positive emotion. It is impossible to be depressed or negative when you are feeling gratitude.

Hence this is one sure way to step away from depression, fear and other negative emotions.

Any time you catch yourself feeling a little low, speaking anything negative or if you have faced a difficult situation, STOP. Yes take a few moments out to start thinking of all of the things you are grateful for.

I guarantee you that once you start with one or two things, more will come to mind and you will start to feel better.

Gratitude and giving thanks can help you see beyond any obstacles in your path.
Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. Brian Tracy

Obstacles, unexpected situations and crisis are all a part of life. Everyone faces these situations at one time or another. The key is not what happens to you, but you DO with what happens to you.

Every situation you face can make you bitter or better. There is only one different letter between these two words, but their meanings are as different as night and day.

Do you allow things to make you bitter, or do you take them as a challenge to become a better person?

Gratitude can keep you humble as you climb the ladder of success.
Never forget where you came from as you run towards following your dream. You cannot do it alone. Many people along the way contributed to your success by something they said, wrote or did. Their words, writings or actions challenged you, inspired you or opened a door for you.

Consider this:
No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude. Alfred North Whitehead

Have you counted your blessings today? I am sure you have a multitude of things you are thankful for.

Here’s a suggestion:

• Take a few moments out of your busy day.
• Find a clean sheet of paper and a pen.
• Write down at least five things you are grateful for.

Now express your gratitude:

• Give thanks for these things.
• Tell someone you appreciate them
• Write to someone expressing your appreciation, or send them a card (on me).

With this in mind, here are some tips to help you MAKE 2009 be your best year yet! These are things that I have done (and some I am still in the process of doing).

This is a great exercise to do on January 1st, and will help to set the course for a great year!

First print out this page, and the following two articles from this blog:

Your Passion in Life

Discovering Life’s Purpose

Now you need to find a quiet moment and a quiet place (away from the computer and Twitter!). This may be dificult at this time of the year if you have family and friends visiting, but I am sure you will be able to find at least 15-20 minutes at some time of the day. If not, don’t fret, this is not Cinderella here (i.e. if you have to wait til January 2nd to find the time, it will still work!).

Don’t forget to take a good old notepad and pen or pencil with you to your quiet place (yes pens and pencils do still exist in this digital world

Closing Chapter 2008!

Before thinking about new goals for 2009, take a moment to reflect on 2008. Perhaps it was a good year for you, perhaps not. But the key is:

• What did you achieve?

• Are you closer now to your life’s goals than you were at the end of 2007? (Not sure of your life’s goals? The two articles you printed out may help you to discover these).
• If you are not closer, why? If you discover that you have lost your vision or it has dimmed, this is a good time to refocus and get back on track.

  It is also a good time to tweak your life’s goals and vision. Was you vision too small? Too dim? Too vague before?

  Adjustments are ok, as long as you are following YOUR heart. (That’s why we are doing this away from all the noise and influence of our friends and family).

• Are there some things in 2008 you regret? This is a time to forgive the people involved, forgive yourself, close the chapter and be free to open chapter 2009!
• Are there some achievements you are glad about in 2008? Great, but don’t camp there! There is more to do, more to achieve. Your achievements of 2008 are building blocks for greater things.

Ok, ready to close chapter 2008?

Getting Started on Chapter 2009

Let’s get started on our goals for 2009.

There are 3 main things we are going to bear in mind while looking at your plan for 2009:

1. It has to line up with your life vision and passion.

2. It has to include a balance for all areas of your life. You, your mental, spiritual and physical health, your family, your business achievements, your leisure time and any other achievements you plan on doing are all equally important.
3. Life can always throw us some curves, so there needs to be some flexibility in our projects.

Here is an outline of some things you might want to write down for 2009. The following items are just ideas to help you get your inspiration flowing:

What do I want for myself?

• Excellent health, I take care of my health so I will be more careful with what I eat, avoid processed foods. I will also make sure I get adequate rest and exercise more.
• Be more alive spiritually, so I will take some time (or more time) every day to read the Bible and fellowship with God .
• Open up new areas of my mind, so I will read 1-3 books a month, learn a new language or start something new like working on brain teasers.
• Spend more time enjoying life, so I will make sure I get to take time to enjoy some bicycle riding, or sports, take up a new hobby and make new friends.

My goals for my family are:

• Spend more time with them doing active things together where there is more interaction (not watching just TV together)
• Involve them more in my business so they will feel a part of this area of my life too.
• Take time to explore new things together (such as learning a new language together, learning about other cultures and countries together, learning a new sport together)

My goals to reach out to others are:

• Join a voluntary organization to help support the community.
• Start supporting new organizations such as perhaps sponsoring a child, supporting St Judes Children’s Hospital, giving to organizations providing clean water where there is none available.
• Take an interest in a needy family and look for ways to help them.
• “Adopt” a teenager and be their mentor.

My business goals are:
I plan on having my business fully support me by ………. (set a challenging but realistic date here).

To do this I will: (This could include things like:)

• Write at least 3 posts a week for my blog (or it might be 1 a day – whatever is a challenge for you, yet attainable within your time schedule)
• Write at least 3-5 articles a week.
• Learn a new area of business (perhaps more about SEO, or traffic, or website building etc)
• Find some new partners to master mind with.
• Find a mentor to guide me.
• Have a daily plan and make sure I keep on track.

Well these are some things that will guide you to create your own plans for 2009, so that you can MAKE 2009 your best year yet!

This is a great book to work through for the New Year (yes it is not really one to simply sit down and read, it is one to study and make notes on). It will help you move up to the new heights you plan for 2009!

Success Principles:

How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be.

Jack Cranfield Co-author of the Chicken Soup For The Soul series, went from being a school teacher to holding a Guinness world record for having seven books simultaneously on The New York Times® Best Sellers list.

This book contains 64 principles, each principle a chapter that challenges the reader to take practical and positive action to risk creating their lives exactly as they want them.

Some principles are better known (such as “Take 100% responsibility for your life”) while others are inventive (such as “Become an Inverse Paranoid”).

All are well worth studying, considering and acting on as they can only enrich your life and help you get to where you want to be.

Recommended reading: 10 Simple Tips for Making (New Year’s) Resolutions Stick

I have often said that most of us, if not all of us could write two different books about our lives. One would be a tragic book and the other a triumphant one. Both would contain facts. Both would be true stories about our own lives.

However it depends totally on yours and my DECISION as to which book we would actually publish. Now perhaps this book is not written down on paper (and so will never be published in print or even digitally), but it IS published in your mind.

Your Life Story IS Published!

It depends totally on your choice as to which of these two books predominate in your mind. The book you have chosen has shaped your mindset which inspires your actions. So in fact your life story IS published to the world through your attitudes and your actions.

So this means:

• You can always choose what to think and what your state of mind will be.
• Your state of mind creates your attitudes.
• Your attitudes inspire your actions.
• Your attitudes and your actions influence those around you for better or for worse.
• YOU decide whether your environment be a positive one, or a negative one. (Yes you CAN change your environment).

You Are Where You Want To Be

It may seem a hard thing to say but the state of your mind and of my mind is exactly the way we WANT it to be. Consequently you and I are exactly where we WANT to be. We are where the mindset that we have created has led us because our mindsets are the very foundation of our lives.

Sure, in our life’s journey we have encountered many outside influences that we had no control over. However, in the face of every challenge and experience in life we do ALWAYS have the opportunity to allow the situation to make us bitter or better. In other words, we may not be able to always control what happens to us, but we CAN control our reactions and responses to these occurrences.

We can choose to become better because of anything that happens to us. How?

Thanksgiving

In the USA, we are just now celebrating a time of thankfulness. Families come together to feast, enjoy each other and to give thanks. But being thankful is not just for one day of the year. It is for EVERY day.

Now you may be saying, but:

• How can I be thankful that I lost my car, or my house?
• How can I be thankful for the constant bickering and gossip that I have to listen to every day at work?
• How can I be thankful my children are always sick during the winter?
• How can I be thankful my husband/wife does not understand me?

Before I answer those questions, let’s take a look at the tone of them. Sure, they are valid difficulties in life, and these questions may be understandable. Some of these situations are very difficult at that. But the very way these questions are formed portrays the attitude of “Poor me, look what I have to put up with. Can’t you just understand me and pamper me?”

No! That attitude will lead to focusing on the tragic life! You want to focus on the triumphant life right?

The Triumphant Life

The triumphant life looks at these situations with the attitude:

• I am thankful that these things will make me a better person.
• I am thankful that these situations are pushing me into developing strengths I did not know I had.
• I am thankful that I can triumph no matter what happens.
• I am thankful I still have my health and/or my friends and family.

Thankfulness or gratitude is a very powerful mindset and will always change our lives for the better, leading us to triumph!

• Which life’s story are you telling the world?
• Which life’s story do you really WANT to tell?
• Do you need to make some adjustments?

Begin by looking for everything around you and in you that you can give thanks for!