Feel Gratitude in Challenging Times, The Top 5 Ways.
Life is unpredictable and often very challenging. So learning how to feel gratitude in challenging times takes some practice. Each day we’re faced with obstacles that test our ability to cope well with difficulties. It’s easy to get angry, scared, or resentful and forget about gratitude for the good things in our life. If we don’t cherish and feel grateful for the good things, how can we justify wanting more of them?
Consider these easy gratitude practices when you need support in challenging times:
1. Include an act of kindness in your day.
When we’re going through a stressful or difficult period in our life, we get so self-centered and focused on self-pity that we rarely stop to think about others. This is precisely why we need to break away from this negative mindset by doing something kind.
Who is the most deserving of my simple act of kindness today? And who has shown me support and love lately? Or what can I do to honor their support and affection?
By being kind and generous to others, you create a greater sense of connection that generates a more positive outlook on life. You feel better about yourself.
When things don’t go your way and you feel like a victim of life, it can be extremely hard to feel grateful and notice things to be thankful for. Yet, there are plenty of small joys around you even on the most difficult of days. You can notice them by shifting the point of your focus.
What kind of blessings have I received lately? How can I show my gratitude for those blessings? Is there someone who deserves a thank you note from me?
Being able to say thank you for the small things helps you in shifting your focus from life’s challenges to life’s pleasures. This way, your mind expands and supports you in finding solutions and ways to get unstuck and move forward.
3. Re-frame your negativity.
Challenging times bring on lots of negativity. If you struggle for any reason, you will likely start to sabotage yourself by creating sadness, falling into despair, evoking regrets, and generating tons of unproductive negative thoughts.
Changing your perspective is the best way to re-frame negativity. Remember that everything in life comes in the form of duality. Nothing is purely good or bad. Look at the goodness and benefits in your current struggles and try to learn from them.
Negative thoughts only have the power to hurt you if you let them.
4. Keep a gratitude journal.
This is likely the most popular gratitude practice. It comes with a variety of benefits, including better quality sleep, increased immunity, greater levels of resilience, and improved mood. All these benefits are needed when you’re going through a tough time in life.
To start a gratitude journal all you need is a few moments of undisturbed time, willingness to reflect, and a way to capture your thoughts (notebook, phone, laptop). You can start by reflecting on the following questions:
What experiences in my life can I be grateful for? And what happened lately that makes me feel thankful? Or what opportunities do I have today? In addition, what have the significant others in my life done that I am grateful for?
The practice of loving-kindness meditation is designed to emphasize the practitioner’s strength and capacity to feel unconditional gratitude. Besides opening your heart to appreciation, this tool is great for building lasting compassion towards yourself and others. Compassion is crucial if you’re looking to reduce stress and overcome obstacles in your life.
Loving-kindness meditation serves as a tool for creating unconditional, inclusive love that leads to true wisdom. The love created this way has no conditions and it doesn’t need to be deserved in any way. Everyone struggles, gets stuck, and experiences difficulty. Next time you find yourself having a tough time, remember that crisis is also a wonderful growth opportunity. Embrace the challenge, enrich it with gratitude, and you’ll experience genuine growth.
I hope that with practice these tips will help you experience gratitude in challenging times.
I am so incredibly grateful that I found out how my ponies can change lives, its in these life changing moments that I see how easy it can be. I have had the opportunity to work with senior leaders, women and vulnerable young people. Regardless of their story, simply, how life changing this can be. I have had such powerful conversations that I just don’t know where or how else you can do that. After meeting someone for 5 mins you can then have life changing conversations. One such moment was talking with a young man with autism and behavioral issues, he decided rather than being violent when you are frustrated try talking calmly. My horse showed him the way. It was an aha moment for him. Which then led to another conversation about how to have respect for his family and belongings.
An incredibly shy young woman about how to engage with people and make new friends. A senior leader learning how to breath and stay calm under highly stressful situations. A young woman learning how to hold herself to be confident and assertive without dominance in difficult situations.
I realise that these are just small moments in a life time but they are profound. It just melts my heart.
It doesn’t matter your story or where you are this works.
Turning your failure into success is something that successful people do and yet failure hurts.
You may have read all the self-help books and the autobiographies of men like Abraham Lincoln who failed all their lives and finally succeeded. It all seems so positive and feel good until you actually fail. One of Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes is, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” There’s just no denying that failure is a bitter pill to swallow. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, you’ll still feel that twinge of disappointment, shame, frustration or anger when your best attempts to succeed fail. I have failed too many times to mention. I try new things a lot and not all of them turn out great. Some of them are just ugly hot sweaty messes that I would rather sweep under the carpet and not let anyone see them.
Usually, the most successful people, are not the ones who do not fail they are often the ones who are better at coping with failure. The reason for this is that they fail more than most people but they just never give up. To be you and to innovate you will need to “fail your way to success”. Or simply “fail fast and fail forward”.
It also means that successful people do more, where someone else may quit the moment failure knocks on their door. There are many ways to cope with failure but it still going to hurt when you fail.
Sometimes it may feel like the only thing you ever learn from a failure is that you failed. While this is not true, it certainly may seem that way in the moment. We are all human with egos and no one likes to fail, you feel like you have wasted your time or money. In a social media world we like to portray that everything is perfect. It is simply not true. You could have worked hard and have a business venture that collapsed. Or maybe your relationship with your spouse crumbles and is beyond repair. Maybe your health takes a turn for the worse despite living a healthy lifestyle. All these are events.
Understanding this, is the key point that makes all the difference, failure is an event, not a person. Like they say, never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart. It will hurt, and chances are you will need to grieve for what you have lost. Even if it is for the future you imagined. Everyone, shares this experience we all fail!
Watch a baby trying to walk. If they had an ego or were worried about what someone might think they would fall down once in front of everyone and not get back up. But it is their failures that teach them how to walk. They experiment.
In life you will fail and there will be disappointment, but when you learn to embrace failure as a learning experience like a toddler you can use this experience to move forward. Success is not final and failure is not fatal. As long as you’re breathing you still can turn your failures into successes.
Here are the 7 secrets that successful people use failure into success
Different people do it differently but, they understand failure is always temporary. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success. Now let’s look at how you can cope with it when it comes your way… and you can rest assured that it will. So be prepared.
Don’t take it personally
The blame game. This is the biggest mistake that most people make. They blame themselves when things go wrong. Or they blame other people. When you do not separate a failure from you, then your self-esteem will drop and you’ll be much more tempted to quit. Don’t look for the who, look for the why or how so you can learn. If you are quick to blame others they often don’t want to help to be part of the solution either.
People quit on their dreams because they don’t believe that they’re capable of achieving what their hearts desire. They feel that it’s too hard and the reason they feel that way is because they may have failed. For example, when someone is trying to lose weight and watching their diet closely, there will be times when they give in to temptation and eat something they shouldn’t. When this happens, they feel guilt and regret that they failed at maintaining their diet.
What do they do then? They toss their diet aside and gorge themselves on food that they’re not supposed to. They believe that they lack the self-discipline to stay focused and lose weight… Just because of one temporary lapse in judgment. This is ridiculous and it’s like accidentally dropping your mobile phone once only to pick it up and keep smashing it on the ground over and over because of one accident. It doesn’t make sense… and yet people act in a similar way.
When you fail at something, whether it’s a blog or your marriage, do not assume that you’re useless and just throw in the towel. What defines you is how well you rise after falling. So the most important point to note is that you should not let failure define you as a person. Always know that you can do better.
Learn From Your Mistakes – Failure is Simply Feedback
All the most successful people have learned from their mistakes and try not to repeat them. Failure can also be treated as feedback. If some aspect of your business, job or relationship fails, ask yourself why this happened. My husband has a beautiful saying you can stay married or you can be right you cant be both. Someone has to be vulnerable in a relationship, better if it is shared and you learn to compromise.
If your new dream was a product and the launch was a flop, there must be a reason why. Was your niche unprofitable? Did the sales page convert poorly? Not the right marketing or could be the wrong audience. Ever been fired from a job? I have, I learned fast and hard from that experience. I understood the impact of no sleep and chaos at home, I simply couldn’t function properly. They had every right to fire me.
Analysis is very important so that you do not repeat the same errors. This is the only way to make progress and succeed. Michael Eisner, the Chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation said, “Failure is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.”
The only way to prevent failure from becoming a habit is to take stock of your situation, learn from your mistakes and adapt. If you can see it as a learning experience. The question I ask myself is “what is the universe trying to teach me?” If I end up in a similar situation I add the second piece “hurry-up and learn the lesson because what you learned the last time was the wrong lesson look again”
I try to maintain a certain degree of detachment so that it is a lesson not a personal affront. The “why me?” question doesn’t help. Sometimes it is a good idea to take a break for a short while and come back to it when you’re feeling better.
Stop Dwelling On Your Failures
You may have noticed that all some people can talk about is how life has treated them so badly. No matter what they do, they fail at it due to bad luck or unforeseen circumstances. We have all seen people are who are comfortable in the space where they are the constant victim. Life happens to them. They appear to have no control. When bad things happen they loose all sense of coping too. Do not dwell on your failures. Where as some people go through the most tragic circumstances and achieve something remarkable from it. It is their post traumatic growth.
Analyze them and move on. You have better things in store for you. Missed out on an opportunity? No worries. Better ones are coming your way. Product launch flopped? That’s ok the next one will sell thousands. Picked the wrong niche to monetize? No big deal. You now know how to find niches with people waiting to buy stuff. Problem solved.
It is inevitable to lose time, effort and money when something fails. If you keep focusing on what is lost, you’ll never be able to focus on what you can gain and there is so much more out there for you.
Focus on the positive and bury your failures.
Model Others
There’s a saying that you should always learn from the mistakes of others because you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself. If you want to achieve something find people who have already done and it and seek some wisdom. I will not ask marriage advice from someone who has been divorced 3 times. But I will when I see a couple who have been married for 50 years. I can guarantee that they have learned a lot along the way and not all it was easy.
If you want to learn a new skill or a new business venture watch the people who are already doing it, take a lesson or get some coaching. Find a way to get to know others in the field who have already failed and succeeded. Be a beginner and seek help.
There are costs
One of the biggest concerns to building a dream is the loss of money. Creating a business or a goal costs time and money. Sometimes we need to trade off one or the other often both. If you don’t have the time what can you outsource and pay someone to do? Is it someone to clean the house, or walk the dog, so you can focus on marketing your new side hustle? Is it getting the expertise you need to coach you through. Or can you put the time into to learn new skills. Chasing dreams costs time and money and you need to understand that there is a sacrifice. Whether that is to your family time when you are putting together budgets and business plans. Or simply needing money to create cashflow for your new venture.
Creating a product costs money. Testing out ads costs money. Outsourcing costs money. There is no getting away from this. In fact, to run any business you need money. It’s like oxygen for your business and without it, your business will shrivel up and die. So, it’s crucial that you have a source of income coming in to tide you over if any online endeavor fails.
When the business fails and the bills start piling up you just may need to get another job to get back on your feet. Do not feel like you have failed and are doomed to a life of ‘working for the man.’ This is just a temporary setback and like Joel Osteen, always says, “A setback is a set up for a comeback.”
Go ahead and take that job. It will feel like retrogression but you must understand that even a tiger crouches before it leaps. Once you have money coming in, the pressure that your finances are causing you will ease. That’s really how it is. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice.
Do not throw your efforts down the drain and quit just because you failed a couple of times. As long as you keep learning and doing, success is inevitable.
Release the Need for Approval from Others
I have seen this fear literally stop people from even trying to do things that they love as they are worried about what others might think. This can destroy your dreams and what you were put on this earth to do if you let it. It is a common fear and makes failure seem much worse than it really is. People often worry what others will think or say about them when they fail. It’s definitely true that you’ll have friends and family members who will tell you, “I told you so!” when you fail. Some of them may even take pleasure in it. This is human nature. It could even be your spouse or parents who don’t support your dreams.
When you fail and see their disapproving looks or hear their sarcastic words, it can seem worse.The truth of the matter is that you only have one life to live and you need to live it for yourself. It doesn’t matter what others say or think about you. Just because others think you’re dumb for failing doesn’t mean that you’re really foolish.
How people see you should have zero impact on how you see yourself. Have faith in yourself and don’t pay heed to the naysayers.
Take a Break
Time heals all wounds. Sometimes when failure really gets to you, it may be time to take a break and put some space between you and your dreams. This will help to clear your mind so that you can think objectively. While taking a break, you can self-reflect and think about your future plans. You may decide to have backup plans to correct any future failures or problems that may crop up.
Take the time to exercise. Research has shown that hard training like boxing, Crossfit, sprinting, etc. help people to release pent up frustration and anger. Go for walk, spend time outside and ground yourself. This can be therapeutic when coping with failure. Instead of numbing your emotions, with alcohol, food or something else. Exercise and therapy can help. Do what suits you best.
What is most important is that you not let failure make you quit. That is the most common consequence of failure. People fail a few times and they quit. If you read the story of Colonel Sanders, you’d realise that he was turned down 1,009 times before he finally found someone who would use his recipe. Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he received financing for Disney World. Your dream could be one more attempt away.
I wonder why, horses have healing powers? My logical and rationale part of my continues to diminish the unarguable results. I have personally experienced their healing powers. Today was another one of those days.
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the horses, maybe it’s just me?
Is it being outside in the fresh air?
Could it be simply being present and aware?
Maybe it’s the exercise?
Is it some chemicals released?
Endorphins – a happiness hormones.
Dopamine – a satisfied hormone
Oxytocin – a relationships hormone.
You may have heard that horses are incredibly spiritual and can sense things way beyond our understanding. I see it with my own eyes and yet I continue to try and rationalise it as something else. It cannot possible be true.
Today I Am Broken
Today I feel like I experienced a miracle, I experienced the healing power of horses. I have had a day off because work has been crazy. Working incredibly long hours, weekends and managing tricky issues and I am not feeling great. Actually I am broken.
Well I have been unwell like I haven’t been in a very long time. Pain riddled throughout my body, my gut can’t decide if I am bloated, constipated or have diarrhoea. My back is cramping and nerve pain all down my legs. Also my joints just have a deep ache and a migraine to boot. I don’t want to move. My body is so fatigued that I am dizzy and just want to sleep but I am so over tired. I can’t even carry a whole sentence though.
Now as I am writing this it is late in the day and I am hot, sweaty, dirty looking like something the cat dragged in, but I am feeling so good. I have just simply spent time with my horses. This morning I stumbled down the back of our place to the stables. I needed to feed everyone and let them out.
We had a horse not doing so great so thought I needed to spend some time down in the paddock checking up on him. So I just hung out with my herd they were so serene this morning it was a little magical. The birds were chirping, beautiful sunshine and a slight breeze. Just a picture perfect day.
My Mood Lifts
I began to feel my mood lift just being with them. So much so I went up to the house to get some stuff done. Which ended in complete frustration as everything wasn’t going to plan. Even my coffee machine wasn’t working properly.
It was then that I started to become aware that I am feeling a little bit better than I was this morning. I hadn’t ridden any horses or spent anytime with them in more than two weeks. So why not grab one and go for a little ride. Let’s just work with one of them.
With my halter in hand I am walking towards my horses and thought whoever comes over to say hello, is who I will ride. Well my baby giant Duke never disappoints he is very quick to come and say hello. He always brings a smile to my face as he is always happy to see me.
Well I saddle him up and knowing I am not fully functional I am just going to do a short session in the round yard and go back to some basics. He was so good trying so hard that I didn’t want it to finish.
Feeling better
Now I am feeling even better and think well I may as well ride Pippi too. She too was amazing and trying so hard for me. Before we saddle up she is in my face needing to be hugged. Pippi is such an affectionate mare that her happy place is one with cuddles and pats. She just wants to be with me and really wants me to connect with her. Pippi is incredible at insisting you be present and making sure you breathe.
So why not do some ground work with a third horse because I am on a roll. Well little shy BJ (the new guy) had a break through too and just wanted to hang with me. So ridiculously cute!
When you can connect with one horse you can feel it in your gut and heart. Anyone who has felt it, knows it is something incredibly spiritual. I don’t have all the language to explain it but there is magic in that moment. Reflecting that all three gave me a deep level of connection today, they somehow knew I needed it.
Well now I am hot and sweaty but I am feeling so much better and I put it down to the healing power of horses. I don’t know how they do it but I do know it happens.
What ever the reason is it continues to work. I have seen it work on others too. “It’s my happy place” or “where I am relaxed” or “where I get my energy back” whatever their feelings are it’s always a place of wellness or well-being.
I know, I still find it hard to believe that a horse can make you feel better than anything I have in my medicine cabinet. However I am living proof that horses have healing powers.
To say that there is no ego in a person who does public speaking regularly or for a living would be clearly a false statement. But for those of us who only speak from time to time, when you see a speaker who can walk out in a room of 30 people or a auditorium of 3000 and literally “own the room”, it really is an amazing transformation. To imagine how you could ever be that much larger than life is mind boggling.
But in a lot of ways, when you step out to talk to a group of people, you do become larger than life. That is because you are doing the impossible. You are having a conversation with dozens of people all at once. Now, whether you feel like you are having that conversation or not isn’t important. If your talk is not interactive, you may not know the dialog is happening. But in the minds of every single individual in that hall, they are interacting with you. What you are saying is getting down inside of them and they are reacting to it. But even more than what you are saying, how you are saying it is having an even bigger impact.
Create a Persona
So are there things you can do to “become” larger than life? Well there are some ways of behaving in front of a crowd that differ from daily life. We do have to accept that you will develop a “stage persona” that is different from your daily personality when you speak to a group. Does that make you a phony? No. Both of those personalities are you. It is just a different you when you relate to a group than to people one on one and it seems strange because that form of you only comes out on stage. But it isn’t a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing. Just as you speak to a child differently than you speak to an adult, you will develop a way to talking to a group that differs from speaking to an individual.
Own The Room
Part of becoming larger than life is learning to what they call “own the room”. This sound egotistic and strange but it really does work when you are about to speak. Owning the room simply means that when you step out in front of that crowd, they are no longer some random group of people, they are YOUR people. They are there to listen to you and what you say is of value to them. If you had any ego problems before you stepped out in front of that audience, check that ego problem at the door.
You must assume that you are adored when you speak to a group of people. This doesn’t mean you strut about like God’s gift to the world. But it does mean that you recognize that your value to this group is as a speaker and that your services are wanted and needed here. In fact, the only way you will be an effective public speaker is if you own the room. Treat that room like it was your home and these people came here just because being with you is just that great. If you step out there with that attitude, the audience will buy into your attitude and they will give you the room and be glad you took it over.
Recognise the craft
It can be a bit strange if you watch yourself become larger than life. But you can be humble about it and just recognize it is part of the craft of becoming a great public speaker. And if being good at this art you are gifted to give to the world means owning rooms and becoming bigger for an hour or so, well then why deny the world that experience? Enjoy it and let others enjoy it too.
Over 100 years ago, a guy called Hermann Ebbinghaus formulated the learning curve. The learning curve is the is how long your retain information or the relationship between memory and time. Simply put if you retain all the information on day one. Your memory is at 100 percent on day one, then you have a 50-80 percent loss on day two which continues until you have only 2-3 percent of that memory left at the end of thirty days.
Now, this is sped up with our shorter attention spans and increased overload of information. So 100 years later our learning sometimes is reduced to 140 characters!
So what can we do to improving learning outcomes and retaining critical information. This why experiential learning is the key to the overload of information.
What is Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is the process of learning by doing.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984) defines experiential learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience.”
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory presents a cycle of four elements
Repetitive Learning or learning by rote has long been replaced by ‘Learning by Doing.’ Experiential Learning uses critical thinking, or problem solving and decision making. By learning this way it has been established it accelerates learning.
Accelerated learning our lessons in shorter sessions more suited to how we now learn.
2. Provides a Safe Learning Environment
Simulations are important. Simulations provide challenges, allow mistakes to happen during the course of learning. Creating a safe environment.
Make mistakes in a simulated environment and learn in an arena rather than in the workplace.
3. Bridges the Gap Between Theory and Practice
By moving beyond theory into “learning by doing,’. Our learning allows a first hand experience of how you react under pressure to put into practicing what has been taught. This piece in crucial in being able to retain concepts and ideas.
4. Produces Demonstrable Mindset Changes
There are very few learning methods that can have a dramatic impact on the participant’s mindset. Ours does, emotional intelligence workshops, is one of them. Management guru Henry Mintzberg pointed out long ago that, “Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it”.
5. Increases Engagement Levels
In the scenario of a Team Leadership Workshop there is a focus on collaboration and learning from each other and this learning environment it increases engagement. Given that in the arena, each person is immediately involved in the problem solving , the level of ownership of the outcome is high.
6. Delivers Exceptional Return on Investment (RoI)
Experiential learning is personal and effective in nature, influencing both feelings and emotions as well as enhancing knowledge and skills. It goes beyond classroom learning and ensures that there is high level of retention, thereby delivering exceptional RoI over a traditional learning program.
7. Provides Assessments
Assessing the effectiveness of the experience is a crucial element of any learning program. Most assessments are data driven and traditional tools use tests to measure effectiveness. When it comes to experiential learning programs, it is extremely difficult to gather data, which can be used for assessments. But others have said this it is still the best leadership training ever.
8. Enables Personalised Learning
Experiential learning is highly effective in meeting these requirements to enable personalised learning. Everyone gets to learn at their own pace.
Our leadership workshops are backed by research and experiential learning in practice, where personal reflections are put into practice. Get out of the classroom and into the arena for leadership learning.
