Grow Your Business With Gratitude Ep-071

Hi friend and welcome to this episode I am so glad you’re here.

Today we’re going to talk about Gratitude. 

You might hear a lot about gratitude. And sometimes we get hardened towards gratitude. Maybe you acknowledge the concept saying, “yeah yeah, I should be more grateful.” 

But gratitude is one of the biggest and most powerful emotions that we can cultivate to make a positive impact on ourselves and on the world around us. 

Here are three quotes 

• “Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” – Amy Collette
• “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
• “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson 

I think my favorite is the Willie Nelson quote.

Lots of times when you start a gratitude practice you may follow this path. 

Each night capture 3 things you’re grateful for in your journal from the preceding day.

And it starts off well enough. But then after a while you go on autopilot and repeat essentially the same things.

It might sound like this.

I’m grateful for my health, my family and my home. Essentially, you’re just checking the boxes.  I’m grateful for x y z

There is a way to easily make your gratitude practice more meaningful and this approach will intentionally increase that feeling of gratitude.

Now before we dive in, I want you to know I am thankful for you. I am grateful that you tune in each week and listen to my voice, my words and each time I record an episode I send up a prayer that my words help you.

As a thanks I created free screensavers, and they are available when you sign up for my FREE Coaches Online Business Academy. It’s the vault where I store all kinds of amazing resources to help you start your coaching business and create clients. These screensavers are graphics I created in Canva that you can use for your phone’s home screen. It’s a super helpful way to remind yourself of powerful thoughts, and quotes that resonate with you. 

Here’s how I recommend fine tuning your gratitude practice.

Take a few minutes now and think of the things you’re grateful for. Pause the audio if you need to and come back to me when you’re done.

If you’re like many of us you’ve voiced thoughts such as these

I’m thankful for

My family

My kids

My partner

My home

My job

And while these are all important things this is what I would call top level, or surface level approach.

Now take one item and narrow it down to something specific and then begin to list all the small reasons that you’re grateful for it.

Here’s what I mean.

When I think I’m grateful for my kids there is no specificity and it’s a global statement where I don’t really connect at the heart.

But when I think, I’m thankful for my son.

He is such a kind man.

He is always willing to help others .

The environment is important to him, and he shows it by in the way he grows vegetables and tends the earth to reduce his impact on the climate.

He is smart, and he’s always learning and sharing what he learns with me.

He is a loving person; I love seeing him relate to his wife.

Do you see how I’ve added so much detail? I bet you can hear it in my voice too…. the depth of emotion, love and gratitude that I created in just 10 seconds. 

Now you try it. 

Take one of your top-level things or individuals you described earlier. Now instead of “going wide” go deep and specific with one. 

What exactly are you grateful for in relation to that one person? Continue to add fine details and you will notice the depth of your appreciation growing.

That’s how you grow your feeling of gratitude and appreciation. 

Go specific and go deep. 

Let’s see how gratitude can help you grow your coaching business. 

When you look at your business. Do you find that you can see all the places where it’s not enough?

Either you don’t have enough clients, you’re not creating enough sample sessions, you aren’t making enough money, or even you’re not making enough of an impact.

Realize that the more your focus on the not enough-ness (yes, I know that’s not really a word) but stick with me. When you focus on not having enough, it creates more of the same. 

For example, if these are common thoughts for you

“I just don’t have enough clients”

Or

“I only have 3 clients”

Or

“It’s not fair, Jane has 10 clients and I only have 4”

You are (unintentionally) reminding yourself that you feel insufficient, disappointed, discouraged. 

And what do you do when you’re feeling discouraged.

Compare what you have with what others have.

Think about how you “should” have more.

Become obsessed with the people who turned you down.

Scroll through social or zone out and watch TV.

Force yourself to get out and make cold calls. (Yuck) 

Here’s what you don’t do.

Pick up the phone and text someone just to wish them well. 

Don’t create some more resources to help your current clients.

 What’s the result of all of that? You’ve spent time comparing yourself with others instead of creating value for your clients. And you still don’t have enough clients.

Here’s an approach you can use to increase your gratitude around your business.

Write the names of your clients on a piece of paper and think about each of them individually. (Remember go deep not wide) Think about how interesting and amazing they are and think of how they’ve grown, how much you enjoy speaking with them and how thankful you are to be part of their life.

Now if you don’t have any clients just yet, don’t worry.

They Are Coming!

You can modify this activity with thoughts about how much you love coaching, where you have grown as a coach, how much learning about coaching and practicing coaching has improved your life – giving thanks for this path that you are on.

Do this regularly and you’ll notice how much more you are enjoying the clients you do have AND you will naturally attract more clients and opportunities. When you feel better, more grateful and more on purpose, it will be only natural for you to show up in new ways.  And when you show up from a place of appreciation and gratitude people will want to spend more time around you.

No matter what area we talk about, if you are focused on having not enough…you will create more “not enough”

When you focus on appreciation for what you do have – you will create even more clients to fill your calendar.

So, your takeaway from this episode, cultivate a little bit of gratitude every day.

Spend 5 minutes each evening and you will find your life is transformed from the inside out. 

Hey, I appreciate you being here with me and listening and I would love it if you would share these episodes with your friends and family.

Thank you for helping me share these concepts so we can create a lasting positive impact.

I’m honored to invite you to be part of my community too. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for my free resource library. The Coaches Online Business Academy, there’s lots of free help waiting for in there right now. Plus, that’s how you can download those Free Screensavers too.

And if you want even more help, maybe you’ve had enough of trial and error and trying to figure it all out on your own. And now you want to work more closely with me. 

Click the link in the episode notes to find out how to apply to work with me.

I’ll be back to talk with you next week.

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