We’re now in the month of November as a slight cool down begins to fill the air. November is also a time for Thanksgiving. A special day reserved for relaxing, eating, watching football, being with loved ones, and most importantly being thankful for what we have.
Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It originated as a harvest festival, and to this day the centerpiece of Thanksgiving celebrations remains Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner traditionally consists of foods and dishes indigenous to America such as turkey, potatoes, stuffing, squash, corn, green beans, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is regarded as being the beginning of the fall-winter holiday season, along with Christmas and the New Year.
The “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days and was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgivings,” as days of prayer thanking God for their blessings.
With this in mind, while you’re celebrating Thanksgiving at home or out with your immediate family. Be sure to take a moment and acknowledge all the people and things you have in both your business and life that you can be thankful for. Most importantly, be sure to reach out to those people and let them know how important they are to you. There is nothing better in this world than having one say “Thank You” for just being you.
Take a moment to also think about the following. Is it true that we can sometimes lose focus on all these gifts we have in our life? Can we sometimes lose sight of all that blesses us on a daily basis? Is it possible that the things others actually dream of, we have and can, unfortunately, take for granted?
Do we choose to focus on and leverage what we have at our disposal to grow ourselves and our business? Do we take the time to slow down and actually thank those that impact our lives and business? There are blessings all around us every day. Unfortunately, in business and life, we can simply forget to slow down and be grateful for all we have.
There’s a simple strategy that I use to combat this challenge, I believe I learned it from Oprah Winfrey. It’s what is called a gratitude journal and it works very well in keeping our minds in the right place. Just a simple composition book will do for this exercise. Every morning or every evening, take your pick, write down 5 things that you are grateful for, that’s it. It can be anything. Heck this time of year we can just be grateful for our South Florida weather!
In life and business, not everything will always go as planned. Essentially in life and business, “you actually get what you focus on.” So, it’s best to focus on what’s right opposed to the later. If you don’t have a gratitude journal already, start it today and focus on all your blessings in life and you’ll be surprised how everything just happens to work out.
In addition, make sure you take the time to reach out to those most important to you and let them know of how Thankful for them.
Happy Thanksgiving!
COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud Action Coach Franchise partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice. Businesscoachmichaeldill.com