I can sometimes be a high stress person.

If my husband heard me say that a year ago he’d laugh and sarcastically ask, “Sometimes? Try anytime we are running late for anything.”

So, ok. Fine. I admit it. My natural state for most of my adult life has been stressed out. BUT, I have worked extraordinarily hard to change that in the last year or so.

The number one thing that has made a difference is changing my mindset. I have started to think of things in terms of thankfulness and abundance and it has turned my world upside down.

I can look at nearly any situation and find something to be thankful for…

• Fight with my husband - Thankful we can speak our minds to each other and still have love

• Still not preg after 9 months of trying - Thankful for the time to get healthy, research parenting types, and plan for the family life that I want to create for myself and my future baby

• Running Late - Thankful for the effort my hubs is putting in to look nice for our date

It’s easy to be thankful about the good things in life but when I started to see the good in a shitty situation, that’s when my stress levels started to go down dramatically. The whole ‘hindsight is 20/20’ thing is so true! Like when you are running late in the morning and stressing out and then you see an accident happen right in front of you on the highway. You automatically switch from being stressed to being thankful that you weren’t in that accident.

BUT, what if you decided to not go through the stressed part of that scenario in the first place?

What if you choose to just be thankful all the time?

• If you wake up late, instead of being stressed about losing awake time, be thankful for the extra minutes of sleep that you got. I mean, who doesn’t need a few extra minutes of sleep? Appreciate those extra minutes!

• If you get stuck in traffic be thankful that you are not in the car that is in the accident.

• If your boss is hounding you be thankful that you have a job.

• If your husband is doing the dishes wrong and driving you nuts, be thankful that he is trying to help at all.

• If your family is being nosy and asking when are you having kids or when are you having your next one, be thankful that they love you and your partner enough to want to spoil the heck out of your future children.

Now you may be saying to yourself - ok, Amy. That’s sounds nice but how the heck to I do this in my own life with my own problems?

Let me tell you - it is simple but not always easy. It just takes practice.

I have made thankfulness a habit by simply practicing it everyday. I have a journal where I write down my thankfuls. Am I perfect at this? Heck, no! Sometimes I write in my journal everyday for a month and then I’ll go two weeks without even picking it up. Life is crazy sometimes but the month where I did practice everyday fuels my mind to be thinking in thankfuls rather than stresses. And then when I do start to feel stressed, I go back to writing down things I’m thankful for everyday to retrain my brain yet again to see the good in every situation.

I want to share this practice with you!

It has seriously changed my life and I feel so much better about nearly everything. I want that for you! I want you to feel even just a little bit less stressed and a little bit more thankful. There is enough love and thankfulness to go around and I want you to have your full share of it!

So comment below and let me know three things you are thankful for today.