Start your ovens ‘cause turkey day’s almost here! Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone you’re celebrating with! I know it’s a pretty crazy week, but I’m going to pause right here, right now and slow down to focus in on what I’ll be giving thanks to this year. So how about a little food for thought? Hehe.

Thankful vs. Grateful

It may sound silly to even consider, but there’s a rather big difference between giving thanks and being grateful.

They may both ultimately be defined as the same warm and fuzzy feeling we get when the house is buzzing with friends and family, but I like to break them down into two separate categories.

Thankful is an initial feeling. It’s acknowledging all you have been given. It’s my best sidekick and young-at-heart husband, my beautiful girls, my crazy Tyson, my purring kitties and all my rockstar clients that are striving to be their best self every day.

It’s the moments in life we’ve experienced and the things we’re blessed to have right now. When you stop and think about what you have, being thankful is easy as pie. (Sorry yet another pun -- OMG I can't stop! lol!). So take a sec, pause here, and list off a few things you’re thankful for. Even write them down and absorb how each one of those things has impacted you and changed you for the better!

So Grateful Is…?

Grateful is every step after thankful. It’s when we dwell on more than just the feeling. We have observed that initial feeling, but gratitude and appreciation is building upon that, and we do this by redirecting our focus and making gratefulness a steady part of our lives, 365 days a year.

The key is keeping gratitude or appreciation at the forefront of our lives. It's not just thinking about how thankful we are to have things or people around us that we love. It's about living out that gratitude through the simple things we do every day. Gratitude keeps us pumped up to be aware that there’s a bigger picture than what’s happening in the moment.

According to author, Melody Beattie, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Being thankful and having gratitude go flawlessly hand in hand, but splitting them up bends the brain a little and opens our eyes to the joys we’ve yet to even know! I hope you all spread this news to your loved ones this week.

Let’s get FIRED UPP,

Nat

P.S. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t leave you with a few Thanksgiving tips: Enjoy smaller portions of everything that you love, eat slowly and only until your 80% full, take a nice long walk sometime during the day and Friday do your best to get back on track while you shop the day away. Gobble, gobble!

#Thanksgiving #gratitude #thankful #appreciation