How to Upgrade Your Mindset - Part 3

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a “series” type blog post that focuses on mindset and some easy exercise we can all do in order to upgrade your mindset so to speak. As I post these topics, I’ll have them all categorized and numbered for easy access if you happen to find a blog post halfway through the series. This topic is one of my favorites and is easily the most important subject when it comes to growth in your life.

What Is Gratitude?

Gratitude is a state of mind that arises when you affirm a good thing in your life that comes from outside yourself, or when you notice and relish little pleasures. Though some people and things are clear blessings, this state of mind doesn’t actually depend on your life circumstances. Whether it’s the sight of a lovely face or a tasty bite of food or good health, there is always something to be grateful for. Even bad experiences at least teach us something. And gratitude is not just a feeling outside your control that arrives willy-nilly. It’s more like a radio channel: you can choose at any time to tune in.

Taking time during the day to notice, contemplate, and express gratitude for these people and things can make your days far more meaningful. Gratitude is a healing and supportive emotion, too. If you’re struggling with family drama, stressful travel, or disappointments, the practice of gratitude can help you.

What Are the Benefits?

Gratitude is strongly linked to mental health and life satisfaction. Grateful people experience more joy, love, and enthusiasm, and they enjoy protection from destructive emotions like envy, greed, and bitterness. Gratitude also reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders, and it helps people entangled with those and other problems to heal and find closure.

Not only is gratitude a warm and uplifting way to feel, it benefits the body as well. People who experience gratitude cope better with stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health, including lower blood pressure and better immune function.

How Do We Focus on Gratitude?

Gratitude doesn’t just happen out of the blue. Gratitude is something we have to focus on. It is something that we have to cultivate, it needs to be practiced.

Gratitude practice begins by paying attention. Focus on everything that’s taken place during the day. Look for things that you might normally take for granted. Like the barista who pronounced your name. Maybe you slept extra great last night and woke up feeling super energized. Did someone hold a door open for you today? Or maybe you just happened to look up at the sky, and you noticed how beautiful it actually was and upon noticing this moment, you felt calm.

Gratitude doesn’t just involve acknowledging the good things in life, it also means that you understand that difficult and painful moments are instructive. These moments are also something to show gratitude for. If you can learn to control your attention in this manner, you’ll be able to block the feelings of victimhood that so many of us face.

Now that we’ve started to pay more attention to the things in our life that we should be grateful for, it’s important that we write it down. Writing helps you organize thoughts, accept experiences, and put them into context, and gratitude journaling may bring a new and redemptive frame of reference to difficult life situations. It also helps you create meaning when you place every day experiences within a framework of gifts and gratefulness. By writing, you can magnify and expand on the sources of goodness in your life, and think about what resources you’ve gained from your experiences, even bad ones.

Finally, expressing gratitude completes the feeling of connection. Many people in your life have helped you in one way or another. Have you thanked them? Consider sending a letter to someone telling them what their actions meant to you, even if—especially if—it happened long ago. But how do you show gratitude for the gifts that don’t come from people? Many religions have traditions that express gratitude for these situations. Outside of that, you can show gratitude by taking a moment to focus on the gift with deliberate reflection.

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Focusing on gratitude is something I've been practicing very heavily for the last few years, I truly believe that this practice has been instrumental in many of the positive life changes I've had.

Do you have any specific practices that you use to help you focus on gratitude?