How often do you consider how to celebrate a business trip? Getting out of your normal routine provides countless opportunities to tap into your creativity and experience gratitude. Why not take something that seems heavy and turn it into an opportunity? For example, taking just 5 minutes to do something like exploring your hotel can lead to interesting discoveries, chance meetings, and new insights.
The power comes from noticing what is happening around you and expressing gratitude. Creating a gratitude list strengthens those good feelings. It is as easy as using the hotel notepad next to your bed to capture thoughts as they come. You can even make it a game to see if you can find [x] number of things over the trip. To spark your own flow of ideas, here is a sample list for you.
Sample Gratitude List
1. Feeling curios – Experiencing this feeling both in the anticipation of a trip and while you are on it
2. Being vulnerable – Not knowing your way around and having to rely on and ask others for help
3. Going outside your comfort zone – Acclimating to a new environment and seeing outside of your immediate needs
4. Experiencing unexpected learning – Expanding your knowledge to local personalities, brands, venues, language, food, and music
5. Trying new things – Eating local cuisine, engaging in local activities, navigating around on public transportation
6. Meeting new people – Having opportunities to connect with the local population, business owners and staff
7. Enjoying the natural environment – Seeing new types of vegetation, flowers, landscapes, oceans, seas, marine life
8. Expanding your community – Adding new people to your social network and meeting new teachers to guide you in life
9. Observing the sameness and the difference – Recognizing that while so much is different at the core we are all the same – we all long for connection
10. Going home inside – Knowing that while you are in a new location that you can go to your home inside through mindfulness and meditation
Now, I am curious. What would you celebrate?
