In my previous post, I explained why gratitude is such a powerful force and how I was able to attract more money into my life by simply cultivating gratitude.

In this post, I’ll give you 7 practical tips on how to cultivate the attitude of gratitude.

1. Think Small

Thinking big is great of course, but when it comes to cultivating gratitude, you really gotta notice all the small things, too. No matter what your life is like, you’re always surrounded by things that make you happy. Things you can feel grateful for. All you have to do is open your eyes and see!

Why focus on the small things? Simply because your goal is to be in a state of grateful happiness and abundance for as much as you can. To attract more abundance into your life, you need to cultivate the mindset of abundance. You cultivate it by noticing the abundance that is already surrounding you. If you’re always waiting for something bigger and better, you’ll never be in the mindset of abundance that is important for the Law of Attraction to work.

Besides, even if you finally got that spankin’ new BMW to replace that old car you absolutely hated driving (although it worked fine), would you be happy and grateful? No, you’d be waiting for that Ferrari. Stuff doesn’t make you happy. Your appreciation for it makes you happy.

2. Be Aware

To notice all those small things around you, you need to become more aware of both your surroundings and your feelings. This way, you can identify the things and people that contribute to your happiness.

You’re always surrounded by many small everyday things that do make your life better. Unfortunately, most of us take them for granted! Got a roof to live under, running water, and an internet connection? Many people don’t have those. If you can feel grateful for all the small things, if you can notice the abundance that is surrounding you, you will find yourself being constantly grateful.

For example, I’m so grateful for my early morning routine I always get up an hour earlier than I have to so I can enjoy my morning moments in peace: a quiet house, cuppa coffee, laptop, and the rising sun peeking through the curtains. I’m also grateful for living near a river so I can take relaxing, soothing walks alongside the beautiful river and nature any time I wish. I’m so grateful for having a wonderful husband, loving family, and great friends. I’m grateful I am surrounded by love.

Gratitude isn’t rocket science. It’s everyday Zen.

Of course I’m not telling you that you should just be floating in a constant state of grateful bliss, totally ignoring the bad things about your life, never improving anything. I’m suggesting the total opposite.

When you become more aware of your surroundings and your feelings, you’ll not only become aware of the things you feel grateful for. You’ll also become aware of the things that make you unhappy. Be honest about them. Don’t ignore them while focusing on the things that make you happy. Find practical ways of taking charge of your life and changing the things you don’t like! I’ll talk about this more in the 7th tip.

3. Make a List

Each day, make a list of 10 things you are grateful for. This helps you notice all the things that make you happy. Even if you had a crappy day, you’re “forced” to find something you’re grateful for. On those days, I’m especially grateful for my list making routine.

Every night before going to bed, I make a list of 10 things that made me feel grateful for that day. I write the list on my computer because it’s more convenient that way, but if you like a paper journal, that’s totally fine as well. Just write them down!

You can make a simple list of keywords or write down complete sentences, whichever suits your style. I prefer complete sentences, often beginning with something like

• “I am grateful for…”
• “I feel blessed…”
• “I thank [the universe, God, myself, a friend, etc.] for…”

Well, you get the idea. Let your imagination run wild!

Avoid using negatives. Your subconscious mind doesn’t really understand the word not, so it usually just ignores it. So don’t write something like “I am grateful I’m not sick” because your brain tends to skip the not part and turn it into “I am grateful I’m sick.” Instead, use positives, such as “I am grateful I’m healthy.”

For each item on the list, feel the gratitude flowing through yourself while writing it down. For example, the gratitude I feel is often so overwhelming it makes me cry! Make this list right before going to bed, so that you can go to sleep feeling happy, contented, loved. This gives your subconscious something to work on during the night.

For example, on a typical day, the items on my list may look like this:

• I feel blessed for the delicious, nourishing sushi I had today.
• I thank my dear husband for loving and supporting me.
• I feel grateful for having a working computer with an internet connection.
• I feel blessed for the big concert I was able to enjoy today.
• I feel blessed to have a healthy, attractive body.

See? These are mostly small things. Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write down any big things. If something big happens, by all means, write it down!

4. Turbo Charge Everything with Good Intentions

Whenever you’re doing something to improve your life or that of others, load it with good intentions. If you’re cleaning the house, feel grateful that you can make your home clean, cozy, and beautiful. If you’re exercising, feel grateful for doing something to make you healthier and stronger. If you’re about to meet an old friend, load the meeting with the intentions of expressing love and receiving love in turn. If you’re cooking, focus on making a delicious, enjoyable meal that nourishes your body and mind.

5. Pray. Yes, you too, Atheists!

You know how religious people pray before eating or before going to bed? Well, you don’t have to be religious in order to use the power of prayer!

I don’t believe in a personal god myself, so I certainly don’t thank any god for my food or ask for them to protect my dreams before I go to sleep. However, I often found myself feeling so grateful for my food that I just wanted to spend a moment thanking for it. For you, food may be mere sustenance, but I use it as an example here because I personally love cooking and eating.

But who to thank if you don’t want to talk to a god? Here are some ideas that I use:

• Thank Mother Nature for giving you Her fruits and crops to eat. Accept Her gifts with gratitude.
• Thank the animals that gave you their milk or their life so you can nourish your body.
• Thank the universe (or God, Source, Oneness) for taking care of you.
• Thank the chef. If you’re the chef, thank yourself!

I don’t pray before going to bed but if you feel like saying thanks for your day, go ahead! Of course you can do it any time you’re about to do something you enjoy so much you want to thank for it. For example, I could imagine saying a thank you prayer if I’m about to open a nice, high quality bottle of some of my favorite Scotch whisky. And perhaps ask for protection so I don’t drink too much of it.

Sounds crazy? Hey, don’t take life so seriously!

6. Be Happy for Your Friends

Avoid jealousy like the swine flu! Jealousy is based on the mindset of scarcity: that resources are so limited there aren’t enough of them for everyone. That if someone is happy and succeeds, it will automatically be deducted from your happiness. If you cultivate the mindset of abundance, however, you know that everyone can get their share.

Why feel jealous if, for example, your friend gets married? There are still plenty of fantastic men and women you can meet. Why limit the options by fixating on one? If you do so, you’re operating from the mindset of scarcity. Your friend got a huge business opportunity? Great! Feel happy for them! There are many opportunities out there, but if you only focus on feeling bad about that opportunity your friend seized, you probably won’t notice all the opportunities waiting for you out there.

If something wonderful happens to your friends, feel grateful for them! Their happiness is your happiness, too. Aren’t you happier when you can be surrounded by happy people?

Sometimes this sharing of happiness is very concrete. For example, a good friend of ours finally overcame his financial troubles and hit it big time with his company. We had borrowed him some money while he was struggling, and now he was finally able to pay the money back – just when we needed it. Also, my hubby got the opportunity to do some freelance work for him and his company – even more money for us! On top of it, he’s given us a couple of free tickets to fairs and concerts on behalf of his company – more money saved for us! So, because our friend is doing well, we are doing better, too.

Oh, this friend is also much more relaxed right now, so he’s better company as well.

7. Work for It!

So, all you have to do is sit on your ass, feeling grateful, and all the goodies will just fall into your lap, right?

NO. You still have to work for what you want. For example, if you want a new friend, how can you ever meet them if you just sit at home, alone? You’ll still have to go out and socialize to meet new people. Or if you want a killer body, you can’t just sit on the couch, drinking beer and eating junk food. No matter how grateful you’re feeling for your beer belly, you’re not gonna get those killer abs unless you actually change your diet, go out, and exercise.

Gratitude, or the Law of Attraction in general, isn’t a miracle maker. You still have to work for it. Gratitude is a mere helper: it helps you shift your mindset so you can welcome abundance into your life and perhaps notice new opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t. It helps you become an emotional match for what you want but it ain’t gonna do the work for you.

You reap what you sow. For example, I mentioned that friend of ours who finally succeeded. My hubby and I had been helping him and standing beside him while he was struggling. If we hadn’t been good friends for him, do you think he’d give us all those freebies and freelance job opportunities now? No. We were blessed because he was blessed but we still deserved those blessings.

Be Grateful for… Feeling Grateful!

I am so grateful for discovering the power of gratitude. Even if none of that Law of Attraction stuff worked, I would still be cultivating gratitude, simply for the sheer joy of it. Feeling grateful makes me so happy. I have also become more alert and aware. These days, it’s easier for me to spot opportunities and seize them!

So… go out, work for it, and make those things happen – with love, joy, and gratitude!

By simply expressing gratitude for all the good things that surround you, you can actually invite more of that goodness into your life. For example, I’ve recently attracted more money into my life, simply by switching my focus from my lack of money into the abundance that was already surrounding me. As a result, I changed my mindset from that of wanting, neediness and scarcity into that of love, abundance and gratitude. With this mindset, I was actually able to invite financial abundance into my life.

In this post, I’ll tell you why it works and how I did it. In my next post, I’ll give you a few practical tips on how to cultivate the attitude of gratitude.

Why Gratitude Is a Powerful Force

If you’re familiar with the Law of Attraction, you probably already know that cultivating gratitude is simply one way of using the Law of Attraction.

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Law of Attraction simply means that your thoughts influence the world around you. For example, if you enter the mindset of abundance and imagine yourself living in the midst of it, you’ll actually attract it into your life. If you enter the mindset of self-confidence and learn to love and appreciate yourself, you will radiate this appreciation, and as a result, other people will also appreciate you and you’ll gain more friends.

If you search the web for Law of Attraction, you’ll find lots of instructions on how to use it. Most of these instructions will tell you that if you can visualize your life the way you want it to be, this visualization will begin to actually manifest in your physical life.

There’s a problem with this, however. You can’t just visualize some stuff or repeat some affirmations. You’ll have to go for it emotionally, you have to really believe in what you visualize. No matter how hard you think or visualize, if you actually can’t feel that way and send that vibe out into the universe, you actually won’t attract anything into your life. If you’re dirt poor and keep chanting “I’m rich”, without actually believing it and entering the mindset of richness, you can keep chanting for the rest of your life and it won’t do you any good.

But how to begin with the Law of Attraction, then, so that you can actually believe in what you visualize?

Gratitude to the Rescue!

Gratitude is the answer. You can choose to cultivate the attitude of gratitude, without having to visualize something that feels completely out of your reach. Gratitude works on what you already have. No matter how hard your life sucks, you can still find some things to be grateful for.

The attitude of gratitude will automatically shift your mindset into that of abundance. Instead of focusing on all the things you don’t have, you’ll focus on the things you have. This way, you will automatically shift your focus and mindset from scarcity into that of abundance – the exact mindset you need to make the Law of Attraction work.

How I Attracted Money into My Life

I’m a poor college student and my husband is unemployed. It probably goes without saying that by the end of the month, we have absolutely nothing on our bank accounts.

About four months ago, I began cultivating gratitude. I realized that no matter how poor we are, we always have our basic needs met: we can enjoy some healthy and delicious food, we have a roof on our heads, access to the internet and computer games, plenty of Star Trek to watch… Yes, we’re geeks, so internet and Star Trek are definitely included on our list of basic needs.

I also realized that in addition to having our basic needs met, we can actually enjoy many luxuries in our life: loving friends and families, beautiful nature, the chance to go out and have some fun, and so on. There are so many things in our life we can enjoy for free or almost for free. I also noticed we eat very well, definitely better than most other students I know.

I also realized something very important: Somehow, we’ve always managed to miraculously get some extra money when we’ve totally ran out of it and it would be two weeks till payday. I’ve found an extra €20 bill somewhere, our families have decided to give us some money just because they felt like it, I had enough AdSense earnings to withdraw them, our local grocery store sent us a free bonus coupon, and so on.

When I realized this, I began trusting the universe. I knew that we will never go hungry, that although we may have no money, our needs will always be met. I realized I was surrounded with abundance! This made me feel so grateful it was overwhelming! I began making a mental note of all those small things that made me feel so grateful.

The Results

Like I said, I began consciously cultivating this mindset of abundance and gratitude about four months ago. About two months ago, I began noticing the results.

We were suddenly getting more money: AdSense began paying a little better, a friend of ours finally hit it career-wise and was able to pay his debts back (we always help out friends by borrowing money if they need it more than we do), a little hobby project of ours finally became profitable, and so on.

More notably, we began getting so many free tickets to fairs, concerts, shows, and other happenings we actually didn’t have the time to go to all of them! We’ve had so many interesting things happening in our lives. We’ve been able to attend some big fairs and gigs we wouldn’t have been able to attend if we actually had to pay for the tickets.

What’s so notable about this? Like I said, I began noticing how we can actually enjoy a rich, full life even though we’re poor. It’s as if the universe picked up on this particular vibe and began sending more free stuff on our way!

It’s no wonder we got so much free stuff but relatively little extra money. You see, I’m not particularly interested in money just for the sake of it. I simply view money as a mere tool to get what I want. The universe picked up on that vibe, too, by skipping the money part and sending us the things and goodies we wanted. I’m actually feeling like Gladstone Gander here!

As you can see, nothing dramatic happened. We didn’t win the lottery and we’re still cheap, but our life has taken the turn for better. This is a slow start but it’s a good thing, because all of this is something I can actually believe in getting. This has built my trust in the universe and the Law of Attraction, and I know this trust will eventually bring some bigger things on our way.

How to Begin Cultivating Gratitude

Start by identifying a specific thing you want to invite into your life (money, friends, love, experiences, etc.) or simply decide to cultivate gratitude in general. Either way, it seems to work.

Next, take a look at your life and identify the things that make you happy. The things that make you feel grateful. These can be very small things! Even if you genuinely feel your life totally sucks at the moment, you can still find something to be grateful for. You woke up this morning, right? At least you’re alive. Appreciate it. Got nothing else to eat than a cup of Ramen? Hey, at least you have food. Feel grateful for it. Have no money? You can take a walk in the park for free. You can still experience the beauty. And the list goes on…

In my next post, I’ll give you a few practical tips on how to cultivate gratitude, so stay tuned! Until then… what do you feel grateful for today?