A Life Of Success And Fulfillment Starts With Appreciation

This habit can be best illustrated with a story...

Let's say that you've decided to start a home based business. As anybody who has ever tried would know, starting a home business is never an easy thing to do. Getting a business up off the ground requires lots of time, energy, money and focus. There may be long periods of time where you'll be putting everything you've got into your business with very little, if anything, to show for it.

Eventually, however, the fruits of your labor will begin to show. Maybe a small sale is made or you get a phone call from a good, potential client. Whatever it might be, something happens which can be recognized as a positive step in the right direction.

What you need to do is celebrate and really appreciate all of the results which materialize regardless of how small or insignificant they may seem.

To the person who is inexperienced in how to start and grow a business, it's easy to become disappointed over small, initial results. By nature, human beings are impatient. We want things to happen and we want them to happen right now.

But remember this; the big results you want can only be born of the small, initial results. Or, to say it another way, you have to learn to walk before you can run.

Look at a farmer for example. Farming has got to be one of the most physically demanding businesses in existence. Farmers put in a tremendous amount of effort gearing up to plant seeds early in their growing season. And, after the seeds are planted, there is a tremendous amount of effort which goes into nurturing the seeds. Finally, after a great deal of effort, seedlings begin to sprout.

Now, do you think a farmer is disappointed to see the seedlings - a small result - or is he happy to see them? You better believe the farmer is thrilled to see his crops begin to grow.

A farmer puts in tons effort to see those seedlings come up out of the ground but there is literally nothing he can do with them. He can't rip them out of the ground and sell them at that point to make his effort worthwhile. He has no choice but to continue with his long days of hard work in order to get the young plants to a point to where they will reward his hard work.

So what's the moral of this story? What can we learn from this example of the farmer? It can be summed up in a single word and it's also the habit mentioned earlier: appreciation.