535 - 9 Things I Learned About Gratitude

In this episode, we look at what I learned from my conversation last week with Karl Staib. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Gratitude plays a major role in dealing with grief and loss. By focusing on the time you are grateful for or the people you are grateful for you make it harder to focus on the pain of the experience.
2. Traumatic experience create deeper rooted neural connections than regular experiences.
3. When the decision to act has been made (subconsciously) there is a moment in time where a choice can be made. It's small but is something that can help us take control of our actions.
4. Willpower is limited and based purely availability. Way power is based on your why and can be a stronger motivation to take or not take an action.
5. The way you view something, how you think about it has an effect on how much energy is available for it. If something is a chore, it becomes draining. If something is an opportunity, it becomes empowering.
6. When we focus on gratitude in our day to day lives we enable the release of dopamine for yourself and the other person (if you express it)
7. The 4 levels of gratitude are surrounding, sharing, self-gratitude, and spiritual. Surrounding focuses on what we can experience with our senses. Sharing is what we can express to others. Self is what we love about ourselves. and Spiritual is our connection to something bigger.
8. The easiest way to build a gratitude habit is to focus on expressing it while brushing your teeth. Or any other habit you already have. Reclaim that time and focus on 3 things you are grateful for.
9. Really focusing on your why as the core of creating change is the best way to make your actions powerful

Books:
Emotional Success: https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Success-Power-Gratitude-Compassion/dp/0544703103
Bring Gratitude:L https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Gratitude-Bite-Sized-Mindset-Practices/dp/1977845495