It is the fastest and easiest way to reframe your mindset.
“The human mind loves negativity.
It’s the default setting for most because it’s so easy.
Negativity requires no effort.
Notice how a small mishap or negative event can take your eye off the ball, despite life being cloaked in blessings?
Conscious gratitude is a superpower.”
-Ray Zingler on X
In personal (and professional) development circles, folks are focused on “optimization” and “productivity hacks” always spewing out little tips and tricks to help you become a more effective human.
And while some of the ideas may in fact be sound, most of them are silly, like the aesthetically pleasing spin dial, digital productivity timer… that is sitting on my desk.
But where these personal and professional development gurus DO get it right is their emphasis on gratitude.
You won’t find anybody who speaks on the topic of development who does not touch on gratitude, and for good reason, too.
The reason gratitude, real, conscious, authentic gratitude is so important is because it is single handedly the easiest and fastest way to reframe your mindset.
I was in an MRI machine for 45 minutes the other day. 30 minutes in, my hands were starting to go numb, my shoulders, which were pinned to the sides of the machine were starting to ache, begging for readjustment and worse yet, my neck was starting to feel like it was locking up, too.
I felt my respiration start to pick-up as the anxiety nudged it’s way in, so I pressed my button and asked the tech if I could re-adjust.
He said, “No, you have 15 minutes left.”
15 minutes scrolling on tiktok can feel like 30 seconds.
15 minutes in an MRI machine with physical pain from head to foot and anxiety to heighten it all can feel like an eternity.
I gathered my breath using a box breathing technique and thought about all the positive things in my life. My Faith, my family, my businesses, all of it. And then what got me to the finish line was the Vietnam War.
“Huh!?”
Yep, there were people younger than me many years ago in a foreign land, pinned down in foxholes taking on enemy fire for hours at a time and I’m sitting in an MRI machine in the air conditioning listening to Morgan Wallen. I can do this. And I did.
Without being conscious of the blessings in a (personally) high stress/high pain situation I would have tapped out of that thing.
It requires training, but the default setting of negative can be manually overridden to positive.
And it’s the greatest adjustment a human can make.
