If you’re looking to turn your life around and make drastic changes, it simply means you are not satisfied with your current life. Yes, there’s no use of spending this only life in unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
For a quick background, I have read hundreds of self-help books in the past few years, and I have coached hundreds of clients in my coaching program around life purpose, habits, and emotions.
I mentioned all this to make sure you understand when claim I have seen and observed some patterns, I am not talking about a sample size of a dozen or two dozen people; I am talking about the observations with a sample size of more than a hundred people.
Some books subtly talk about this, while books scream at you with this one concept. But most of the books mention adding this as a ‘must’ in your life.
Gratitude can transform your life
The secret weapon is gratitude. Rhonda Byrne, in her book The Secret, mentions it over and over again to push yourself and develop a daily gratitude practice.
According to Harvard Medical School, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.
We only feel two emotions — fear and love; everything else is a derivative of these two. Happiness, joy, acceptance, gratitude, etc.- are the derivatives of love. Guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, etc. — are the derivatives of fear.
In any given situation, we can respond with either of these two feelings — love or fear.
And by default, our setting is turned to a fear-based mindset. Choosing a love-based mindset would be the conscious choice we need to make for growth and prosperity.
A fear-based mindset is a protective mindset. But now that we don’t have to hunt every time to prepare our lunch, we can put this protective mindset to rest.
Now that we live in a relatively safer environment with so many comforts, we can choose to live with a love-based mindset.
The shift is your choice
If you feel ready to accelerate your growth, let’s start with step 1. No matter how amazing or devastating your current life situations are, the moment you choose to practice gratitude, your life will start growing even better.
But the shift is your choice. Your default setting will always be a fear-based and protective mindset.
Your ability to switch and make this shift will determine how quickly you grow in your life.
Follow this 3-step formula to make the shift
Borrowing from Gabriel Bernstein and her 3-step “Choose again” method from her book “Super Attractor,” let’s learn how to shift to gratitude in 3 easy steps.
Step 1: Recognise your thoughts.
Realize when you are not living in a state of gratitude. Usually, when you are not living in gratitude, you will be living in anger, guilt, or even complaining about things.
Step 2: Forgive yourself.
Like we discussed, living with a fear-based mindset, this is your default setting. Forgive yourself for this thought and feeling. Let it go. Move on.
Step 3: Practice gratitude.
Write 10 good things about the person/situation you have been complaining about. Or make a list of all the things in your life that you are grateful for.
Daily practice of gratitude
Whenever my life goes down, this is where I start rebuilding myself again. I will start writing down 10 things/people/places I am grateful for.
This could be your starting point too. Develop a daily practice of making gratitude lists. It usually takes 10–15minutes when you’re just starting.
Accept the temporary nature of everything
This is one truth of life — nothing is permanent. Even your desire to live happy always, that’s unreal. Accept it.
You can never be “always grateful,” and that’s a reality. But your integrity will depend on how quickly you recognize and make the shift to be grateful again.
You will have ups and downs, and that’s life. I’m grateful for the ups and downs I am having right now. What about you?
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