The 8 Day Challenge Day 4

Thought of the Day
"Thanks for everything."

Good morning 4:8 thinkers!

Welcome back! We’re on day four and today I want you to practice being exceptionally grateful for your life just as it is at this moment. Remember, this challenge is about focusing on the good stuff! Today, I want you to pray, think, speak and behave like a highly appreciative human being.

When you experience a sense of gratitude, it means that you have been harboring thoughts of appreciation for the abundance in your life. When you feel a sense of deficiency, it does not necessarily mean that you are lacking something important. What it does mean is that you have recently been dwelling upon what is missing, very likely to the exclusion of what is present.

You might have been thinking about your spouse’s annoying quirks and overlooking all the reasons you married him or her in the first place. You might have been thinking about being under financial pressure and forgetting that you have just about everything money can’t buy. Gratitude involves channeling your energy and attention toward what is present and working rather than toward what’s absent and ineffective.

Gratitude is like a mental gearshift that takes you from turbulence to peacefulness, from stagnation to creativity. Gratitude brings you back to the present moment, to all that is working well in your life right now. Gratitude is the cornerstone of an unstoppable, 4:8 attitude. And gratitude can be cultivated and then experienced at ever-deepening levels.

Gratitude is also an effective antidote to most negative emotions. For example, you cannot experience gratitude and hostility at the same time; you have to make a choice. Which one is it going to be? The more you appreciate today, the more things you will notice tomorrow to be grateful for.

On the flip side, the less appreciative you are today, the fewer blessings you will tend to acknowledge tomorrow. You are going to draw more joy out of your business, out of your marriage, out of your family life, and out of all the other aspects of your existence when you make a commitment to become a genuinely grateful person.

Question of the Day
Are you certain that the people you love the most know how grateful you are for them?

The Challenge of the Day (for extra credit…or the extra mile)
Today, make a list of four people in your life who have pushed you to become a better person and call, email, or write a personal note of appreciation to each within the next 48 hours.