Success and Failure

While I would love for all of my blog posts to highlight my tremendous progress and exciting wins, life doesn’t work like that. Invariably, we all experience ups and downs, and progress occurs more like “two steps forward, one step back” than in an upward slope. Although I posted two weeks ago about the wins I’ve experienced since starting this blog, this past week has been more of a period of discouragement. In this post, I will share my feelings of discouragement, along with some suggestions for how to handle such times in your life.
Career & Health Woes…

One of the “wins” I shared in my “Progress Already” post was that I was attracting more work projects and experiencing increased confidence as a result. Well, that win turned out to be short-lived… The inquiries regarding prospective work have led to dead ends and a couple of projects which I believed were “sure things” have fallen through for reasons unknown to me.

I want to briefly interrupt my discussion of Louise Hay’s Key Principles in order to share a personal practice that has made a big difference in my life. I will return to the Key Principles in my next post…

I’ve often heard that the biggest key to happiness is gratitude, and I don’t doubt that. When we are present to all that is wonderful in our lives, it’s difficult to feel depressed and despondent. As I look back on my life, I can see that even in my most difficult times, I still had a lot to be grateful for in my life. I just had to look in the right place! It’s all about focus and attitude, I’ve learned.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

To help me to stay aware of the many blessings in my life, I started to keep a Gratitude Journal a few years ago. I confess that I haven’t always been consistent with this practice, but when I’ve maintained my Gratitude Journal, it’s helped me to be more positive and upbeat. Here’s how it works…