6 Ways To Find Gratitude When Everything Goes Wrong
IN OUR RECENT book, Getting Back to Happy, we share this entry from Marc's grandmother‟s journal, dated 9/16/1977: “Today I‟m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts removed. But in a strange way, I feel like the lucky one. Until now I have had no health problems. I‟m a sixty-nine-year-old woman in the last room at the end of the hall before the paediatric division of the hospital begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these patients could be a day older than seventeen.”
That journal entry has been hanging up in our home office for the past two decades, and it continues to remind us to practice gratitude through thick and thin. No matter how good or bad we have it on any particular day, we do our best to wake up grateful for our lives, because other people in other places are desperately fighting for theirs.
Think about your own life in this context of gratitude. How often do you let go of what you think your life is supposed to look like, and sincerely appreciate it for everything it is?
If you‟re anything like the rest of us, it‟s probably not often enough.
Because finding sincere gratitude is much easier said than done in the hustle of life, especially when hard times hit. The truth is, most of the time we create tragedy in our lives out of fairly minor incidents. Something doesn't go exactly as planned, but rather than learn from the experience, we freak out about it and let stress become us. Or we resist the small bits of progress we've made because we can't achieve exactly what we want all at once.
Here are some ways to find sincere gratitude when everything seems to be going wrong. We're not suggesting we should rejoice at living through disappointing or painful life experiences. But there are ways we can find gratitude as we grow through them, nonetheless.
1. Find gratitude around difficult people.
We expect people to treat us kindly, fairly, and respectfully. But the reality is some people won't. They will lose their tempers or act foolishly, regardless of how we treat them. This must be accepted.
Don't lower your standards, but do remind yourself that removing your
expectations of others—especially those who are being difficult—is the best way to avoid being disappointed by them.
When you're forced to deal with a difficult person, you can be grateful for having other people in your life who are far less difficult. You can be grateful for having a way to practice being better at patience, communication, and tempering your expectations. You can think of this person as a teacher who is inadvertently helping you to grow stronger as a person. And, at the very least, you can be grateful for them because they serve as a great reminder of how not to be.2. Find gratitude when you catch yourself complaining.
Many of us have developed a subtle habit of complaining when things don't go quite our way. Gratitude is the antidote. Each time you notice
yourself feeling bitter, or complaining, notice the story in your mind about “how life should be.” Instead of letting this story dominate you, find a small way to be grateful instead. What could you feel grateful for right now? What could you appreciate about this moment?
Remember, there's always something to be negative about—and something to be grateful for. The choice is ours.3. Find gratitude when you are overwhelmed.
Have you ever noticed how the more familiar you become with an amazing situation or relationship in your life, the more you seem to take it for granted—and even feel annoyed or overwhelmed in busy and stressful times? Challenge yourself to flip your perspective in these moments, using a simple reframing tool we call "... and I love it!”
ADD THIS PHRASE to any overwhelming thought:
I need to go grocery shopping, and pay the bills, and pick the kids up from school in an hour... and I love it!
My inbox is filled with two dozen client e-mails that need a response today... and I love it!
Let this little reframing tool give you the perspective you need. Because, again, the everyday things that overwhelm us are often blessings in disguise.
OK, now for some harder stuff...4. Find gratitude after job loss.
No one wins at chess by only moving forward; sometimes you have to move backward to put yourself in a position to win. And that's a good metaphor for your
life's work too.As painful as losing your job is, it's an ending that leads to the be
ginning of everything that comes next. Let the heaviness of being successful be replaced by the lightness of starting over. This new beginning is the start of a different story, the opportunity to refresh your life, to reinvent who you are.
Remind yourself, as often as necessary, that you can find gratitude for where you are. You can find gratitude for these moments of reinvention—for pushing into the discomfort of getting good at interviewing, learning new skills, and levelling up. You can find gratitude for the opportunity to grow stronger, even in the midst of the growing pains that ultimately get you there.
5. Find gratitude amid health problems.
A couple of years ago, on the second-to-last day of her life, a close friend of ours shared that her only regret was that she didn't appreciate every year with the same passion and purpose that she had in the last two years of her life, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. "I've accomplished so much recently, and truly appreciated every step,” she said. “If I had only known, I would have started sooner.”
Her words made us cry and smile at the same time. What was truly miraculous was seeing the genuine gratitude in her eyes at that moment. And her sentiment has always remained with us. So, while health problems are never fun, the pain can be mediated by a sense of gratitude for having a chance to move forward on our own terms. Of having a life worth living, from moment to precious moment.
6. Find gratitude when someone you love dies.
As we know firsthand, when you lose someone you can‟t imagine living without, your heart breaks wide open. And the bad news is you never completely get over the loss—you will never forget them. However, we have the ability to push through the experience, and even find meaning in it.
Ultimately, we grew to appreciate that although death is an ending, it is also a necessary part of living. Limits illuminate beauty, and death is the ultimate limit—a reminder that we need to celebrate this beautiful person, and appreciate this beautiful thing called life. Although deeply sad, this passing forces us to gradually reinvent our lives, and in this reinvention is an opportunity to experience beauty in new, unseen ways and places. And finally, death is an opportunity to celebrate a person's life, and to be grateful for the beauty they showed us.
Life‟s disappointments and struggles are not easy to find gratitude for, but they can become incredible paths of growth if we find the lessons in them—if we start to see everything as our teacher. Truly, the best time to focus on being grateful is when you don‟t feel like it. Because that‟s when doing so can make the biggest difference.