Gratitude is an important practice, right?
You know this because you’re often told it!
But why?
Why is it important to be grateful?
This seems obvious, doesn’t it?
You “should” feel grateful for what you have.
And certainly you want to feel the best you can about your life today.
But, REALLY, why are practices like gratitude so powerful?
The mind governs your life
See, this is the heart of the GREATEST mystery I’ve discovered in life.
It’s the mystery of mysteries that the ancients talked about.
But it’s a long way from where I began this work.
Back then it was all about—
How do you get what you want?
And come on, of course that’s a GREAT topic, right?
Who doesn’t want to live your absolute best life??
The problem is what was implied in my old definition—
You need your best life to feel your best!
But some tens of thousands of hours researching these topics taught me a new definition of “best life.”
What is your BEST life?
A funny thing on this topic of life is how little we’re taught, right?
Perhaps it makes sense.
Each one of us is as unique as our fingerprint, so there is no one answer that fits nearly 8 billion of us.
You can buy that, right?
But, you could also imagine that there might be say 50 or 10 or 5 or even just 1 answer that does fit all?
Or even, just at the least, someone might give you a clue or two!!
Because, yes, of course we are all unique, but life is remarkably similar, isn’t it?
I’m not saying that what works for one cat works for every cat.
But analyzing the lives of cats you should be able to come up with some rules of thumb about what makes a best life, right?
And the same is true for us humans.
What makes for your best life?
It’s got LITTLE to do with what you have
See, this is where we get led astray on these topics—
Most the research on happiness is WRONG.
It’s wrong for the same reason that people can spend years talking with psychologists about the same problem!
The error tracks back to the faulty cause and effect assumption that particularly permeates Western thinking—
That what you have determines how you feel.
Said differently—that the quality of your life determines the quality of your mind.
Meaning, it’s supposedly obvious that if you’re—
- Rich
- Successful
- Have great people in your life (friends, married, community, etc.)
- Let alone famous…
Then, by golly, despite all the evidence to the contrary…
You “should” feel on top of the world!
Hmm, OK…
So what’s REALLY going on?
You know what’s going on!
None of that determines the quality of your life!!
That’s just the stuff you have.
Or who you’re surrounded with.
But the ONLY thing that determines the quality of your life I already revealed right upfront—
Your mind!
The fact is, it’s ALMOST irrelevant what you have.
What you do.
Who you are surrounded by.
Ultimately, EVERYTHING in life comes back to how you think and feel about it.
It’s all relative
This is one challenge in understanding the architecture of the brain.
NOTHING is absolute.
Meaning, for example, if you started life with little money, and made a lot of money, by the rules of human logic you “should” be happier.
But of course we know what happens, don’t we?
That brain moves the goalposts, doesn’t it?
So that old amount of money that perhaps would have had you feeling “rich,” now has you feeling like you need more.
Then of course you begin looking around.
You see this or that person has a “better” house, car, partner, job, business, friend, vacation, whatever…
If only, the brain thinks…
If only something was different…
Well, then you would feel your greatest.
Half empty or half full?
What would you say?
Do you think the average mindset of our society is half empty or half full?
Hahahahahahaha!!!
Obvious question, right?
How about you?
When you think about the quality of your mind, where are you?
I’m hoping you’re FULL?
Or at the least thinking and feeling half full about your life?
But often we find ourselves seeing it half empty, don’t we?
With that brain of yours looking around latching onto things that it thinks must change for you to feel full.
Starting full
I had a client last year looking to take a huge leap in her career.
When we started she believed that she was feeling “half empty” because she didn’t know how to make this leap:
- Does she do this?
- Do that?
- How do you even work through all this?
She was pulling her hair out!!
Her brain tricking her with that faulty cause and effect, she believed that if only she could figure it out she’d feel how she wanted.
And, look, to be clear, she was already in an AMAZING job.
She’s absolutely crushed her career.
But even starting here, she was feeling half empty.
So of course you know where we started, don’t you?
With questions like—How will you feel AFTER you’ve made this leap?
Leaping from full
There’s a trick of transforming you and your life that sounds counterintuitive.
BUT, when you start to see the world this way, you realize it’s the ENTIRE game.
See, when we’re feeling stuck, the mind can get you more stuck.
You start thinking about stuff like—
- What’s wrong with where you’re at
- How hard it can be
- If only this or that was different, etc.
The problem is, the mind is starting from an “unresourceful” place.
Meaning, you’re trying to get to a “feeling FULL answer” from a place of feeling half empty!
It fails.
But instead, when you begin with feeling full.
Well, now you start to have the thoughts and take the actions that are consistent with leaping to this full outcome.
And the same is true with EVERYTHING else in life!
Quality of your mind governs your life
It simply NEVER matters what you have, do, are…
If you’re NOT feeling it.
Hence, the importance of where we started on practicing being grateful.
But again, why?
Why do we need to practice what should be seemingly obvious ways of thinking and feeling good?
Exactly???
That’s the game we find ourselves in, my friend!!
One where the quality of your mind governs the quality of your life.
Is the quality of your mind what you want it to be?