Mental Floss part 2 - Gratitude

Transcript:

Today we are continuing our series on mental flossing. I want to share with you a practice that can help you Mental Floss or manage your mindset better. We're going to talk about gratitude. It's easy to talk about gratitude and then forget to be grateful. It takes courage and effort to practice gratitude. However, the benefits of practicing gratitude are numerous. There scientific studies that talk about it. There are people in general who just share that when they're grateful they feel better, sleep better, feel more compassionate, they feel happier or more alive. So why shouldn't you practice gratitude if you get good feelings from it? If it makes you feel better and makes the people around you feel better. I think it's a win-win. So I definitely encourage you to practice gratitude.

But there's another reason I think you should practice gratitude, and it wraps around that concept of focus. Because the way our minds work we have filters. Because these filters are in place we could miss things based on what we're focusing on. Have you ever bought a new car and before you bought that car you would look around, and you wouldn't see it anywhere. Then the moment you bought it you saw it on the roads everywhere.

This means we find what we are looking for. We can look around our world and not see anything to be thankful for or not even notice really great amazing things that are happening around us. However when we practice gratitude actively we look around the world, and we see more things to be grateful for. More amazing people, amazing projects and things that are making our world better. So when you practice gratitude as an active practice you're going to see more and more things that you can be grateful for.

All right, so here are some tips on how you can practice gratitude.

Start a gratitude journal. Every night write three things in it that you're grateful for, and it could be huge things, and they can be little things.

For me when I'm practicing gratitude is usually when I realized I don't have something I need and it makes me really grateful for the fact that I normally have that item. I know that's kind of a funny way of doing it, but for me I lose pens all over the place, and when I take my pen jar gets empty I'm like oh I'm so grateful that most of the time I have pens when I need them. It's easy to be grateful for the times I do have pen, and then I go, and I'll round them up from all the places that I left them.

The next thing that you can do is tell others that you appreciate them. It is a great way of practicing gratitude. The other person feels good. It helps us build better and healthier relationships. When we practice appreciation for the people that we are in relationships with and instead of looking at all the things that they do that annoy us, we look at all the things that they do that make us really appreciate them being in our lives. It’s an easy way to practice gratitude.

Another way is to smile. When someone has an amazing smile, it is contagious.

Noticed things that are positive. Notice the beautiful flowers or the fall leaves. I personally do not love winter, but I try to practice gratitude in the fact that winter means that spring is on its way. Practice gratitude and all areas of your life and try to find things that you're grateful for.