It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to write a post about gratitude!

You can read my previous posts by clicking here.

Okay – now for today’s post:

When things are going well and life is easy breezy, we are able to think of tons of things that we are grateful for. Everything we look at seems to have a positive glow to it – we are looking at life through a lens of gratitude all of the time.

But what happens when things don’t go according to plan? What happens when life becomes hard and we feel like we have lost our sure footing? How can we be grateful when nothing seems to be going our way?

This is when continuing our gratitude practice each day becomes extra important. If we are already in the practice of seeing life through a lens of gratitude and positivity, when something happens to us that we aren’t thrilled about, we’ll be able to automatically see the good in it and find something about it to be grateful for.

And if you are in a bad spot right now and you haven’t been exercising your gratitude muscles, there is still hope, I promise. Just start right where you are. Pick yourself up by starting with the basics – whatever they are for you. And if you can’t think of any at all, you can be grateful that you are alive. You can be grateful that the sun comes up every single day. You can be grateful that each day is a new beginning, and you get to choose how you will react and respond to everything that happens to you.

Then when mistakes are made and life goes off track, you’ll be able to quickly pick yourself up again.

I know this works. In fact, I have been practicing it all day today.

I own a journal company, and I realized last night that I made a mistake. We were getting ready to bind some journals that needed to be mailed today, and I realized that the boards had the wrong cover design on them. All of them. And this was a rush order for a client who is presenting a couples’ workshop this weekend. In seven years of running my business, I had never made such an error. In my former life, I worked as a quality control technical editor, which means that the documents were edited by the team and then passed on to me to be the final eyes on them. I am very detail oriented, and each order that we process goes through me before it ships out. We have sent thousands of orders over the years, and I can’t think of a single time anything like this has happened.

I definitely panicked when I realized this huge mistake. Our journals take 3-4 days to dry, so there definitely wasn’t enough time to make new ones. Dan and I decided that we could quickly make chipboard journals, which could ship out today (The inside pages would be the same, but the covers would be a bit different from what was ordered). We would then send the original order on Monday. Not a perfect solution, but a solution nonetheless.

And after the panic wore off and I had a chance to sleep on it, I woke up feeling grateful for this mistake.

Here is why:

• I am grateful that I get a chance to practice great customer service. We are doubling the order at no additional cost to our client, so he will have twice the journals!
• I am grateful that I realized this mistake before we sent them out. It would’ve been terrible for him to start the workshop and realize that we sent the wrong journals.
• I am grateful that this was a wake up call to me to see that I am not practicing what I preach – I am not taking enough time to recharge, rest, and center myself. It’s a wake up call that I am taking on too much, which means that things are slipping through the cracks. It’s a wake up call that I need to reevaluate my priorities and get organized.
• I am grateful that I am the boss. I made the mistake, and I get to decide how to make it better.
• I am grateful that I work with such caring people: Dan, this client, and all of our customers who are always so supportive of what we do. Everyone understands that mistakes happen.
• I am grateful to realize that I am human. I am not perfect – much as I have tried to be. It is an unachievable goal, and I am throwing in the towel on that one.
• I am grateful that I have the ability to put this in perspective. As we always say, “There is no such thing as a journal emergency.” No one died; no one even came close. Thankfully.
• I am grateful that I have set up a gratitude practice, so that I was able to be grateful soon after realizing my mistake. In the past, I definitely would’ve been down for much longer about this. I would’ve expected so much from myself and not allowed any room for error.

And all of this came from a mistake.

Do you want to try it?

Think about a mistake that you recently made. (If you can’t think of a recent one, think of something in your past that you regretted doing.)
How can you be grateful for this mistake?
What can you learn from it?
How have you changed for the better because of it?

It’s easy to be grateful when life is easy, but being grateful when we’re faced with challenges takes a bit more diligence.

I have faith that if we put our minds to it, we can be grateful in all situations.