Now that you’ve taken a look at how mistakes can be positive factors in your life, make a list of all the things you’ve done right, and all the things (in addition to your mistakes) you have to be grateful for.
Look at your family, your friends, your home, your car, your town, your health, your job—the list is endless. It may not all be perfect at the moment, but what isn’t perfect you can change.
If you can’t change it, you can get rid of it, or move on. At the very least—or perhaps the very most—you can, through counseling or meditation or introspection or help from a variety of sources, learn to live with it. We all have the opportunity at this time and in this place to make our lives exactly what we want them to be.
If gratitude doesn’t come naturally to you, work at it. Post reminders around your home and your car and your office until feeling grateful becomes a habit. You can replace your worry habit (#64) with it.
Get in the habit of taking a few minutes at the end of each day to make a list of all the things that happened that day for which you can be grateful.
You’ll find, if you haven’t already, there’s a self-expansion aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it’s a little-known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.