"Find the light, love, and lessons in everything."

I heard the legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist David Meltzer describe gratitude in a really unique way, that is spot on!

For many people, gratitude is a spirit of appreciation. It’s being thankful for the blessings we all have in our lives. And while that’s true, it’s only representing a small piece of it. Gratitude isn’t just an acknowledgment of the things that are good, it’s a belief system and consciousness that everything is good.

That’s why Dave describes gratitude as “The perspective of finding the light, love, and lessons in everything.” Rather than feeling inconvenienced by a change of plans or victimized by something unfair, living in a state of gratitude is the ultimate reminder that everything is working for you.

It’s the belief that life (the universe, God, karma, or whatever you believe is the ultimate authority in life) only wants to promote and protect you. And it often delivers its goodness in ways that you don’t immediately see as good for you. It’s our limited awareness that keeps us from seeing how everything that happens to us is always the best thing that could ever happen to us.

I know that this comes off as a polyanna. Practicing this form of gratitude is easy to say but much harder to actually do. Especially in the grips of despair, discouragement, defeat, and loss - the last thing your ego wants to admit is that it’s all happening for you.

But consciously, you can try to pull yourself out of it and manufacture gratitude. To change the story around what you’re experiencing. And how you do that is exactly what Dave recommends: Finding the light, love, and lessons.

The ‘light’ is the positivity, the silver lining, the way that things could actually be brighter for yourself and others. 

The ‘love’ is an encouragement to be empathetic and understanding of what someone else might be going through, or the pain someone else might be feeling that’s causing them to show up a certain way. 

And the ‘lessons’ are the breadcrumbs of insight that you can use to drive improvement and accelerate your personal evolution, which is what everything we ever experience is all about anyway.

That’s gratitude not as an action, but a way of life. The more you can intentionally create this perspective, the more it integrates unconsciously as your everyday lens into the world. It’s the reason why gratitude journaling literally changes your outlook on life, and how to actually change your belief system so that you start being more positive.

If you want support with making that transformation for yourself, that’s what the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge helps you to do: Transform your health, daily productivity, and mindset from the inside out in 21 days.