Does Gratitude Matter?

Be thankful. Be grateful. Shift mindsets and thrive. 4 ways to focus on gratitude.If you are in the States, we are on the cusp of the Holiday season, kicking off with Thanksgiving in just a few days.

For me, the Holidays throughout the year are moments to step into gratitude.  Not just in a little “thank you for that gift,” but in a gratitude for being alive.  For being here.  For experiencing life.

Each morning, while walking the neighborhood with my dogs, Ziggy and Clementine, I reflect on 5 things for which I am grateful.  That starts my day with an attempt to shift my attention to thankfulness, to gratitude.

Granted, some days, that feeling quickly evaporates when the work piles up.

But I try to remember to be grateful on a daily basis.

How about you?

Did you know that research shows how simple gratitude habits can re-wire the brain… away from fear and threat?  Away from depression and anxiety?  Just by thinking with gratitude.  Just by focusing on things for which you are grateful.

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, I discuss the power of gratitude to shift your thinking and re-wire your brain… just in time for a day we set aside to be particularly Thankful.

Know that I am thankful for you, my reader/listener.  Wishing you the best of Thanksgivings!

RELATED RESOURCES
Gratitude & Appreciation
Two Targets To Thrive
The Appreciation Approach
Stop Trying To Change The Past
Thrive Principles Books

How to NOT Thrive: Next 5

How to NOT thrive... and what to do instead.Well, you are on to me!  Last week, I started talking about things you can do to guarantee that you DON’T thrive.  I’m sure you knew I didn’t really want you to NOT thrive.  But I wanted to point out some ways people make themselves miserable… and what they might do to shift.

If you missed that episode, JUST CLICK HERE TO HEAR IT.

It is interesting to notice how we humans can really mess up our lives!  Life throws us enough to deal with.  Then, we tend to multiply it with our own blind spots and stuck points.

With my Top 10 List To Guarantee You Don’t Thrive, I wanted to point out 10 ways that people really do keep themselves stuck.  And the fact is, I see these same patterns repeated over and over by many people.

So, if you see yourself in one (or more) of the stuck points, that just means you are… well… human.  Congratulations on being able to spot it!  That is the first step in doing something different… something new… something more… THRIVING!

Listen in below for the REST of the ways you can keep from thriving… so you can thrive!  (Unless you don’t want to… then just follow my suggestions.)

RELATED RESOURCES
How To NOT Thrive, Part 1
Control What You Can
Dealing with Stress
Gratitude
Feedback
Meaning & Purpose
Make An Impact
Book:  Thrive Principles

Why Thankful?

Why Thankful?  Practicing thankfulness and gratitude this Thanksgiving Day and every other day.In the States, this Thursday is Thanksgiving Day.  What’s the point, right?  Let’s just jump on into Christmas season!  The stores are already bustling and everything seems to be bursting with green and red.

I have nothing against Christmas.  But I do think there is an important pause, a moment.  A time to be thankful.  Not to just say a quick word of thanks, then dive into a gut-busting meal.  But to be thankful.

To practice gratitude.

Why?

Because our brain’s default is on scarcity, not abundance — what we DON’T have, not what we HAVE.  Where we AREN’T, not where we ARE.

It’s a matter of mindshift.  A choice to shift to abundance, gratitude, and thankfulness.  Not just allowing our default setting to take over, looking at the scarcity and the lack.  At what scares us.

In this week’s Thriveology Podcast, I discuss “Why Thankful?”  Why should we even make the shift?

I wish you a very thoughtful, thankful day filled with gratitude, wherever you are!

RELATED RESOURCES
What Thriving People Know About Gratitude and Appreciation
Giving Thanks
How To Guarantee You DON’T Thrive
Living Your Engaged Life
Book:  Thrive Principles:  15 Strategies for Building a Thriving Life

How To Guarantee You DON’T Thrive

How to NOT thrive... and what to do instead.Well, you are on to me!  Last week, I started talking about things you can do to guarantee that you DON’T thrive.  I’m sure you knew I didn’t really want you to NOT thrive.  But I wanted to point out some ways people make themselves miserable… and what they might do to shift.

If you missed that episode, JUST CLICK HERE TO HEAR IT.

It is interesting to notice how we humans can really mess up our lives!  Life throws us enough to deal with.  Then, we tend to multiply it with our own blind spots and stuck points.

With my Top 10 List To Guarantee You Don’t Thrive, I wanted to point out 10 ways that people really do keep themselves stuck.  And the fact is, I see these same patterns repeated over and over by many people.

So, if you see yourself in one (or more) of the stuck points, that just means you are… well… human.  Congratulations on being able to spot it!  That is the first step in doing something different… something new… something more… THRIVING!

Listen in below for the REST of the ways you can keep from thriving… so you can thrive!  (Unless you don’t want to… then just follow my suggestions.)

RELATED RESOURCES
How To NOT Thrive, Part 1
Control What You Can
Dealing with Stress
Gratitude
Feedback
Meaning & Purpose
Make An Impact
Book:  Thrive Principles

Amped Engagement: Amplifying Your Engaged Life

Amplifying your engaged living. How to fully engage with gratitude, awe, and a deep spirituality.In the last episode of the podcast, I started a series on living The Engaged Life.  We continue that series in this episode.

If you have focused on living those 3 P’s of Passion, Purpose, and Presence, you can amplify your Engaged Life with attending to 3 areas.  All 3 come from within you.  You can bring more engagement, more connection, more depth, and more meaning into your life.

Amplifying is all about adding Power to those 3 P’s.  And all about enlarging that Engaged Life for yourself.

Listen in to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, so that you can amp your engagement.

RELATED RESOURCE
3 P’s of Engaged Life
Your Spiritual Life
Gratitude in Your Life
Book:  The Thrive Principles

Charging Into The New Year

ChargingIntoNewYearThe New Year.  It is upon us.  And along with the start of a new year is an opportunity for us to re-start.  To make some changes.  To find some ways to charge into the New Year, with a new approach.  Maybe even a new attitude!

Many people make resolutions around this time.  And most of those resolutions are broken by February.  Gyms are full in January and quiet again in February.  Health foods fly out the doors in January, only to be tossed to make room for cookies and chips in February.

Change is a tall order… unless you have some clarity to your change.  Some simple approach that makes your hopes and dreams a part of your life.

Let’s make a 4 step plan for charging into the New Year.  (And even if you listen to this episode at some other time in the year… guess what?  You can use the exact same 4 steps at any time!)

Start the year right… by making a fresh start!

Listen to the podcast episode below.

RELATED RESOURCES:
Your Word
Gratitude
What You Can Control
Thrive Principles Book
The Immutable Laws of Living Book

Why Being Thankful Matters

Be thankful. Be grateful. Shift mindsets and thrive. 4 ways to focus on gratitude.If you are in the States, we are on the cusp of the Holiday season, kicking off with Thanksgiving in just a few days.

For me, the Holidays throughout the year are moments to step into gratitude.  Not just in a little “thank you for that gift,” but in a gratitude for being alive.  For being here.  For experiencing life.

Each morning, while walking the neighborhood with my dog, Ziggy, I reflect on 5 things for which I am grateful.  That starts my day with an attempt to shift my attention to thankfulness, to gratitude.

Granted, some days, that feeling quickly evaporates when the work piles up.

But I try to remember to be grateful on a daily basis.

How about you?

Did you know that research shows how simple gratitude habits can re-wire the brain… away from fear and threat?  Away from depression and anxiety?  Just by thinking with gratitude.  Just by focusing on things for which you are grateful.

In this week’s podcast, I discuss the power of gratitude to shift your thinking and re-wire your brain… just in time for a day we set aside to be particularly Thankful.

Know that I am thankful for you, my reader/listener.  Wishing you the best of Thanksgivings!

RELATED RESOURCES
Gratitude & Appreciation
Two Targets To Thrive
The Appreciation Approach
Stop Trying To Change The Past
Thrive Principles Book

The Appreciation Approach

The Appreciation ApproachYour brain is really only capable of being in one of two modes:  fear/threat or love/appreciation. Unfortunately, the fear/threat mode is pretty much the default and automatic.

Fortunately, changing to manual and shifting to love/appreciation is not complicated.

More than that, there is plenty of research to point to the specific benefits of that shift:

  • Better emotional health,
  • Higher pain tolerance,
  • Higher sociability,
  • Greater life satisfaction,
  • More sleep,
  • More exercise,
  • etc., etc., etc.

There really isn’t much of a downside to gratitude and appreciation.  It just requires a shift in habits to get there.

Got 10 minutes or so per day, just for the next month?  YOU can build your appreciation/gratitude  toolkit and add it to your Thriving Toolbox.

Tools of Thriving Series
Introduction
Thought Awareness
Only Control What You Can

The Responsibility Formula
The Perspective Shift
Your Built-In Importance Indicator
The Importance Matrix

Can’t Change The Past So Stop Trying

Let your past stay in your past.  Focus on the present and future.It is an interesting human characteristic that we spend lots of energy trying to rework and change the past — at the same time, we fail to believe we can change our future!

A belief that the future is unchangeable (and actions/inactions that often reveal this hidden belief) is called fatalism.  It is a belief that fate is set.  The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the Fates, three women who created the thread of life for each person, measured it out, then cut it, when it was time to die.  No beating the fates.

Que sera sera.  

“Whatever will be, will be.”

I think I much prefer (please excuse my attempt at translation),  Que fuera era. Whatever was, was.  That might be “reverse fatalism.”  The past has happened and can’t be changed.  But we do have some choice about how the future plays out.

We don’t have FULL control of our futures.  But we have much more than we often like to claim.  And that might be the better focus:  changing what we CAN change, what we CAN control.

The past is NOT part of what we can change.  The future (starting in the present) holds much more potential.

Join me as I explore this “Reverse Fatalism.”

RELATED RESOURCES:
Interview With Jack Canfield
Accepting What Is
The Control Paradox
Forgive
Show Up
Responsibility
Gratitude
Consider Being A Patron


What Thriving People Know About Gratitude And Appreciation

What Thrivers Know About Gratitude And AppreciationSome people seem to just know how to thrive.  For the rest of us, we need to learn the skills of thriving.

Today, we discuss one skill easily learned, with incredible impact.  And it is one I work to incorporate into my life.

Thrivers practice gratitude and appreciation.

Gratitude is the attitude and mindset of noticing what is right, what is enough, and what is in abundance in our lives.  You see, our brains naturally look at the world through scarcity — “I don’t have enough.”  But there is another mode, one that switches the brain to love — Gratitude!

When we focus upon and look for the pieces of life for which to be grateful, our brain begins to switch modes.  It re-wires to look for more evidence of abundance.  And when we show appreciation, we carve out stronger bonds with those around us.

Practicing gratitude leaves you more satisfied and happy, healthier, better connected, less depressed, and less anxious.

And you can practice gratitude in just a few minutes each day!

Learn how in this week’s podcast.