GRATITUDE CHANGES EVERYTHING!
Beloved, I was reading an article today and thinking about the current transitions I am dealing with. This spoke to my heart, encouraged me, and thus I am sharing.
...The emotion I feel most strongly right now is GRATITUDE... Melinda French Gates
Gratitude. It's not necessarily the word you might expect. It caught my attention because it's a powerful lesson for every leader. You see, gratitude is a choice. It's a decision you make about your perspective, regardless of the circumstance. It is an intentional effort to recognize the good despite the fact that life is complicated and hard.
It's not always a given that we will be able to see that good, especially if we're not looking. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the complicated parts of our lives or jobs. It's easy to just want to quit when things get hard. But gratitude is an intentional shift in how we view all of it.
A lot of that seems to come down to the people.
"Most people never in their lives get to work with a group of people like this one--as talented, as brilliant, as caring, as visionary, as thoughtful, as driven," she wrote. "So I recognize what a gift it is that, for the past twenty-five years, you've been such an enormous part of my life. I'm incredibly impressed by you and so glad to have had this chance to work with you."
I think the lesson here is pretty simple: Even when we don't get to choose our circumstances, we do get to choose our perspective. Too often, we allow our emotional response to a situation to dictate our perspective. We become consumed by anger or grief or disappointment, and that becomes our outlook. We let our emotions determine how we see our situation.
We can choose to think differently about our situation. We can look at what we face and decide that we're going to focus on the good in our situation, which has the benefit of changing how we feel about it. As a leader, it might just be one of the most important lessons you can learn.
Before I wrap up my last day at the foundation, I wanted to reach out to thank each one of you for the role you played in my time here and for all the work we did together.
As you might imagine, I'm holding a complicated mix of emotions today. I'm sad to be saying goodbye, proud of all we accomplished, energized by what's ahead, and excited to see what you do next. But the emotion I feel most strongly right now is gratitude. ... Melinda French Gates
Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do.
Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father who created all the lights in the heavens. He is always the same and never makes dark shadows by changing.
I am so blessed indeed gratitude is a greatful attitude
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