Gratitude is an important element of our prosperity. When we express our gratitude for what we have in our lives we align our energy to receive even more of the same in our lives.

Put simply, being grateful makes us magnets for more prosperity and abundance. Huge magnets.

Invoking this power is simple: express your gratitude for something, anything you have in your life. Size doesn’t matter on this one. If you found a penny on the ground this morning, celebrate it! After all, you just got something for nothing - free money - two things, interestingly enough, that “common wisdom” says don’t exist.

Still don’t think you have anything to be grateful for? How about the fact that you managed to read this blog in the first place? How great that you’ve got access to a computer and the internet! Got a roof over your head? How about the fact that the air you breathe is free? If you take the time to look, you’ll absolutely find something to be grateful for. And the more you find, the more you’ll find.

So on an ending note, here’s my own list of things I’m grateful for today:

I am grateful to be on this path of prosperity consciousness and effortless living I am currently sailing.

I am grateful to share my knowledge with others to help them determine their own paths.

I am grateful to be in such positive energy that grows more each moment.

I am grateful to have released so many beliefs that didn’t serve me and replaced them with beliefs that support my abundance.

I am grateful that I am increasingly more present in every moment of my life.

I am grateful to know that I can choose happiness at every moment, and do so most of the time.

I am grateful that I release judgment, especially of myself in those times I do not choose happiness.

I am grateful that I attract more abundance into my life, and celebrate every time I receive, be it a penny on the ground or a thousand dollars into my bank account.

Above all else I am grateful for my entire life experience, and that I am truly enjoying every aspect and experience of my life.

This weekend I charged myself with completing writing something. This project has needed to be done for a while now, but I have kept putting it off. Finally, I made a commitment to it being in someone’s inbox by the time they started work Saturday morning.

It was Thursday morning when I made this commitment, knowing that I had two very full days ahead of me and very little time in which to accomplish it. Friday night would be the only unscheduled time I had to write it.

Friday evening I retired to my office and pulled out the document to work on. I read over my previous work on it and decided that it needed a fresh start.

I sat in front of my computer and stared at the screen for a few minutes before I walked away. It was in the moment right before I left my office when I realized when I have really wanted to complete a piece of writing, I go to bed relatively early and wake up in the wee hours of the morning.

I followed that prescription Friday night. I crawled into bed between 9:30 and 10:00 PM and set my alarm for 3:00 AM. I know…I usually find that to be a tortuous hour to wake, but when I absolutely have to write, 3:00 or 4:00 AM is when it gets started. I drifted off to sleep thinking that when I awoke, I would get straight to writing and I’d be able to send it off just before 8:00 AM.

At 3:00 AM I decided to reset the alarm for 4:00.

I finally get to the computer sometime around 4:20. I locate the document and start typing away. It is in those morning hours that the words flowed through me and seem to magically appear on the page. Before I knew it, I was done. It was about 5:45.

I did a quick review for typos and minor changes, not too concerned if I would have to do anything extensive since I knew that I was sending it out for a critique and would get revision suggestions in the afternoon.

I took a fresh look at it around 10:00 and did very slight tweaking. I realized that the editing needed on this piece was minimal.

I reflected upon past morning writings and noticed a few things. I started doing this type of writing in college, when I would have a paper, short story or any other piece of writing due. I would beat myself up about it, yelling at myself about procrastination.

As I got older, I still did this when I had something that I felt was really important to write. My stomach would get all tied up in knots as the deadline got closer. Then, I would again admonish myself for procrastination and not getting it done sooner.

These two things didn’t need any reflection. I know these two things because they run through my head any time I have committed to writing something.

The next few thoughts that came out of this reflection have just changed my life forever.

I realized today that what I’ve been doing all these years has not been procrastination. It has been a formula for my writing success.

When I feel compelled to write, like now, it can be any time of day and there are a few factors that are always similar like where I like to write, the instruments I use to write with, etc.

When I have to write, it is entirely different. Choosing to deliberately write takes discipline. Ask any writer, we all have a routine that we follow. I just never recognized mine until today.

Daily disciplines allow you to focus on the task at hand. It is just something that you do that eventually becomes automatic. You will often fall into a zone while doing it. My best deliberate writing, needing the least amount of editing is the outcome of a very specific discipline.

What I once thought was procrastination and being driven to work under the wire, I now know is my way of setting a very strong intention, focusing on the outcome and getting my conscious mind out of the way so that my subconscious mind can be open to delivering just what I need.

I know this formula now, and can use it with any project that I want to flow effortlessly through, be it writing or anything else.

I know that this formula will work for others as well – we just need to plug in the routine that is specific to them. For me it is sleeping on it and getting up and doing it. For someone else it might be brainstorming, going to play a game of golf and coming back to sort the brainstorming into a cohesive project plan they are inspired to follow.

The possibilities are as endless as the people who want to tap into how to move from procrastination to productivity in their lives.