Gratitude is a powerful positive emotion that generates a feeling of blessedness and contentment. This indirectly makes one feels lucky and fulfilled, which is the opposite feeling of misfortune, lack or scarcity. Thus, according to the Law of Attraction, a sense of gratitude attracts into your life more experience and opportunities for abundance and good fortune.

That is the reason why gratitude is an attitude that is strongly encouraged in all religions. Through constant practice of gratitude, one can learn to be genuinely grateful for all the little things in one's life. Here are three ways to practice gratitude.

1. Be grateful for the things that went right in your life

These are usually the things that we have put in the effort and planned for. For example, we can feel grateful for the job interview that went right, or the launching of our project that we have planned for weeks. We can feel grateful for having done a great presentation to our clients. Anything that we have planned for or put in extra effort consciously to make it happen falls into this category.

2. Be grateful for the things that did not go wrong

These are usually things that we take for granted each day, such as driving to work or spending time with our children. We can feel grateful that we were not stopped by a traffic police on our way to work, or that we arrive safely to our work place. We can be grateful for having some time to play with our children or going to a movie. Reflect on how many people in this world do not even have enough to eat or a place to sleep, or cannot have a peaceful sleep because of the fear of war. These are the everyday things which we have taken for granted. Be grateful for these things that did not go wrong.

3. Be grateful for things that did go wrong but you were able to learn something from them

We are make mistakes. Some of these mistakes may be major errors in judgments. We may even have hurt some people. When we make these mistakes and have learned from them, the mistakes are not made in vain. We benefited from these experiences. Be grateful that we are able to learn from them. Most people make mistakes in relationships, and despite having make mistakes many continue to repeat the same mistakes. If you do not repeat your mistakes, be thankful that you have learned from your mistakes.

About the Author:

Dr. Tim Ong is a medical doctor and the author of "From Fear to Love: A Spiritual Journey" and "The Book of Personal Transformation". He is also a contributing author of David Riklan's "101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life - Volume 3" with other authors like Mark Victor Hansen, Ken Blanchard, Byron Katie and Les Brown. You can get more inspiring and mind transforming articles at his websites at The Self Improvement Site and Mind Science 101.

P.S. For more on the astonishing power of gratitude, click here.

Some of my favorite tools for self improvement are affirmations, brainwave entrainment, hypnosis, NLP, meditation and visualization. I frequently recommend these same tools to friends and colleagues who are keen to improve themselves or raise their effectiveness in life to a new level.

Hypnosis and NLP are particularly useful in changing some of our deep-seated negative beliefs and habits. Done properly, they can actually change some of these negative blocks practically instantly, replacing them with more positive beliefs and habits. I became so fascinated by them that I paid thousands of dollars a few years ago to learn hypnosis so that I can use them for some of my clients.

If you are like me, when you want to learn something, you will search high and low for a teacher who is qualified, experienced and good at his work. Sometimes, such a teacher is hard to find. The teacher may fit the bill but he or she is not available in your locality or your busy schedule just does not permit it. However, the Internet has changed that. Using e-books, forums, video tutorials and the occasional conferencing, it is now possible to learn just about anything online.

Steve Jones is one such teacher who has maximize the use of the Internet to reach out to the world. Steve fits the bill of an experienced, qualified and good teacher of hypnosis and NLP. Moreover, Steve has been teaching these courses online for quite a while now.

If you are keen to explore the possibility of learning hypnosis and NLP, especially with the view of getting a practitioner certification, you can learn more about it here:

Steve Jones' Hypnosis Practitioner Certification Course

Steve Jones' NLP Practitioner Certification Course

Go over there now because Steve is offering quite a discount at the moment, but I do not know when he will decide to end the special offer.

The benefits of an online course are that you can learn at your own pace and you do not have to take time off from your work to attend classes. You don't even have to travel. The down side is that you will not have the human experience of actually be with the teacher. If you learn best with a teacher by your side, then online learning is not for you. However, if you can learn independently and are motivated, then online courses are a blessing for you.