Setting Personal Goals: Be Grateful Every Day

Setting Personal Goals:  Be Grateful Every Day
Page content

Achieving your goals is not a foregone conclusion.  There will be surprises along the way - both ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And even the ‘bad’ can be ‘good’ if you can learn something from them.  You’ll need motivation - and a positive attitude – to keep moving forward, step by step. And nothing will help you to keep a positive attitude like being grateful every day!  Be grateful for that ‘good’ thing that happened to you…and for that ‘bad’ thing too – provided you took away a good lesion from it and ‘turned the lemon into lemonade’! Someone coined the phrase ‘attitude of gratitude’.  This article looks at many of the benefits of developing an attitude of gratitude – by practicing being grateful each and every day.

This is the fourth of a series of four articles on “Setting Personal Goals”, where we explore some of the nuances that will put you on the path to achieving greater levels of personal success.  This article, Part 4 in the series, “Be Grateful Every Day,” encourages you to take on an attitude of gratitude in order to maintain positive thinking in the face of obstacles to achieving your goals.  Part 1, “Write Down What You Want”, looks at your desires as the first step – not the last – toward achieving your goals. Part 2, “Reconcile With the Past,” looks at ways of dealing with your past…to overcome the cynicism that may have crept into your thinking.  Part 3, “Lay Out a Path to Your Future,” provides a fresh prescription for setting your goals once you have clarity and have dealt with the past.  

Life is full of surprises.  The process of goal setting seems to be based on the premise that you can “design your life”, or that you can “get whatever you truly want”.  Personally, I think those things are only partially true.

Consider these five questions:


  1. How many would-be athletic stars have been injured, denying them their goal?
  2. How many politicians lost an election, denying them their goal?
  3. How many rising corporate stars hit a glass ceiling somewhere along the line and stopped rising?
  4. How many people in your family, or business, or team do you wish were ‘different’…in many ways and for many reasons?
  5. Are there some ways that you wish you were different…such as more athletic ability, smarter, better looking…?

I’ll say it again:  life is full of surprises.  And yet we need to keep positive, and maintain motivation in spite of it all…

Consider the above five questions again:


Being grateful is probably the greatest way to maintain that motivation.  The surprises – the curve balls – that life inevitably gives us provide setbacks…AND blessings.

  1. The once hopeful but injured athlete may have found a new calling as a coach.
  2. The once hopeful politician who lost may find newfound vigor and motivation in a new role that’s even more meaningful and fulfilling.
  3. The once rising corporate star may find new meaning and fulfillment in an alternative path.
  4. Keep in mind that those that you might like to change…usually have admirable and very special qualities that you may not have noticed before.
  5. And notice that YOU very likely have some unique characteristics that have hints of giftedness that you may never have recognized.

Set your goals and go after them to the best of your ability!  But above all else, be thankful!  It will keep you flexible and motivated on the path to ultimate success!

Have you developed the daily habit of being thankful for all that you do have and where you are?

This Post is Part of the Series: Setting Personal Goals

These articles explore some of the nuances that will put you on the path to achieving greater levels of personal success. 

  1. Write Down What You Want
  2. Reconcile With the Past
  3. Lay Out a Path to Your Future
  4. Be Grateful Every Day