Life is unpredictable. Sometimes things happen beyond your control. You have good days, and then you have bad days. Sometimes you let the bad days and the negative experiences in your life get the best of you, and this ultimately clouds your outlook on life. Let's face it: you can't and will not always have your way. Whatever happens in the world is external, and you can't always control the reactions of things outside of you.

The good thing is that you do have complete control over the internal, which is yourself. You can absolutely manage how you react to and how you feel about any given situation. It's totally possible to stay positive when things are not going as great. This is easier said than done, but as with all things, positivity must be practiced.

An important way to practice positivity is by being grateful. In fact, gratitude is key to having a positive attitude and it is the seed from which abundance and happiness grow. This may sound like something you've heard before and something that quite honestly, is simply hard to put into practice when times are tough. The fact of the matter is that it works. By focusing on what you're truly grateful for evidently puts you in a state of gratitude.

Once you're in a certain state, in this case, a state of gratitude, you cannot be in any other state such as a state of anger or a state of sadness. The next time you find yourself in a negative situation, instead of letting certain feelings bring you down, shift your energy and focus on the good in the situation and be grateful for what you still have. Whether you believe it or not, there is good in absolutely every situation and while sometimes it's clear what the good is, other times you'll need to look for it. Either way, it's there, and it's worth paying attention to. It's important to look at what you have in your life rather than focusing on what you don't have and feeling bad about it.

By concentrating on what you lack inevitably leads to dissatisfaction with life. To add, you have a lot more to gain than lose when you're grateful, despite the circumstances. You don't need a big house, a fancy car, a really fast metabolism, a nice body or a lot of money to necessarily be grateful for your life. Even though all of these things are desirable, and people who do have these things should be grateful for them, they aren't the things that will make you happy in life. Instead, be aware of the small things in your daily life that have special importance.

Your family, your friends, the fact that you can wake up every morning and do the things you do without anything precluding you from doing so and even living life are just some of the many reasons to be grateful. Thinking from a standpoint of gratitude not only makes life better and allows you to be more positive but also it makes you recognize what is truly important in life.