HAPPINESS
Gratitude Is The Key To Living A Great Life
Here’s how to find more of it
What if I told you there was a pill that would instantly make your life better?
A pill that shuts down fear, anxiety, and anger.
And makes you feel significantly happier than before you took it.
Also — it brings you closer to the people in your life, and it makes you more attractive to them.
It helps you achieve your most challenging goals by supercharging your optimism, confidence, and desire.
Plus — unlike every existing medication you can buy in a pharmacy right now, it has no side effects.
And you don’t need a prescription.
It’s scientifically proven to be effective. And people have known about it for thousands of years.
In fact, it’s a central part of every major religion on earth.
But…
Most of us choose not to take this pill every day. And some of us haven’t ever really tried it.
This is surprising since you don’t even need to swallow it.
You just think about it, and it does its thing.
Well… you’ve probably figured out that this is a metaphoric pill I’m talking about.
The pill is called gratitude.
And everything I just told you about it… is true (except for the part about it being a pill).
Now, I’m probably not the first person to tell you that feeling grateful for what you have will do you good.
You’ve probably heard about the studies that show that gratitude causes happiness…
Like the one that found that people could increase their happiness level by 25% just by spending 3 minutes, once a week, writing down 5 things they’re grateful for.
Which is not a bad deal…
Three minutes a week to be 25% happier?
Why are we all not doing this?
Well… our brains don’t make it easy for us to do what’s good for us.
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus had already figured this out. He said,
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.
Remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for.”
For thousands of years, people have understood that we all have a war raging inside between desire and gratitude.
And it’s not hard to see why our brains are wired for desire…
Back when we all had to hunt for our food, how would it have worked out if we just sat there in the cave feeling grateful for the antelope we ate two weeks ago, instead of being driven by the overpowering desire to go get another antelope?
Well, times have changed, and now we can order our antelope burger (or the vegan entree) from Uber Eats…
But our brains haven’t changed.
So what are we gonna do?
What’s it going to take to win this war?
Well, I’ll tell you what it’s going to take:
Self-discipline.
Look, if you’re not eating chocolate cake for breakfast every day, that means you do have some self-discipline.
And there’s no better place to use it than right here, on the subject of this chapter, gratitude.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; I’ll tell you what some other much smarter people have said about it.
Like Abe Lincoln, who made this point:
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns —
or we can rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
That is exactly what this war is all about.
You get to choose how you see things.
And, no matter how bad things are, you still have a choice.
Here’s another way to look at the same idea:
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One, as though nothing is a miracle.
The other, as though everything is a miracle.”
You gotta admit, it’s hard to argue with Einstein there.
And Oprah Winfrey talks about this all the time.
One of her core messages is that gratitude leads to abundance:
“Be thankful for what you have, and you’ll end up having more.
Concentrate on what you don’t have, and you’ll never have enough.”
Now, that idea is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people.
It’s the opposite of how we’re wired to think.
If we need or want more of something, like money, what we hear inside our heads, repeating endlessly, is this:
“Need. More. Money.”
But focusing on what we don’t have does not make us feel good.
It creates a negative mindset.
Which does not lead to positive outcomes.
Here’s how Tony Robbins puts it:
“You can’t feel grateful and afraid at the same time.
And you can’t feel grateful and angry at the same time.
When you feel grateful, the negative emotions disappear, and abundance appears.”
That’s why—every morning—I spend three minutes, sitting down with my eyes closed, reliving three moments in my life that I can feel grateful for.
Usually, it’s stuff from the past 24 hours, but sometimes it’s from a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.
And I always make one of them something simple and small, like a stranger smiling and saying hi to me when I walk the dogs.
I never, ever miss a day of this.
It has a massive effect on my mindset every day.
There is no question in my mind that this practice has transformed my life.
But you don’t need to make Tony Robbins’ priming exercise part of your morning routine to experience all the benefits of daily gratitude.
Here’s what you can do instead:
You walk down the street, and you look for roses.
When you find ’em, you say to yourself,
“How awesome is it that this thorn bush has those beautiful roses growing out of it?
I love that!”
And I don’t care how much of a cliche this is; it works.
You go put your nose right up against those red flowers.
And you breathe in deep.
Then you say to yourself,
“I am so lucky that I am here right now, experiencing this.”
And then you go find more roses.
Now, you have a choice to make.
You can give in to your ancient brain and just see thorns everywhere.
Or you can make the thorns invisible.
You have the power to do that.
All you need to do is… smell the roses.
x
This article is an excerpt of the forthcoming book, Your Best Life: Tactics, Tools and Insights to Create a Life of Fulfillment, Joy, and Abundance, by Mike X — to be released in October 2022.
For more on Mike X, see mikex.blog.
And check out his YouTube channel, YouTube.com/mikeXtv.
