WRITE 3 GRATITUDES A DAY FOR CONSISTENT GROWTH BY BEING GRATEFUL!

We always recommend the book MINDSET by Carol Dweck to our mentees and members of 3 gratitudes a day Telegram community. 

The genius, or, rather the hard-working lady from Stanford, who wrote the book MINDSET, says that it’s not a good idea to praise people for who they are. So, don’t say:

• You’re a genius
• You’re brilliant
• You’re so good at math! Instead, praise the Effort!

Let’s take you through Joe’s story.

Joe was going through a blind positive mental attitude and so-called self-growth psychology (or “pop psychology” as his good friend calls it) before reading this book. He used to think that speaking positively about others was good. Hence, he was surprised and shocked that what he was doing was absolutely wrong and downright harmful to the person he is saying it to.

Someone said it is not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It is what you know for sure is true, which ain’t, that gets you in trouble. 

That happened to Joe. He was 100% sure what he was doing was right until he read Carol Dweck’s book, ‘MINDSET’.

HOW DID THE BOOK CHANGE JOE?

Joe started praising not the end qualities but the efforts that get him there..

For example,

• Replace “You are Smart” with “You did a good job with your homework!”
• Replace “You Work Hard” with “You studied 2 hours extra last night, good job!”
• It’s ok that you got a C. If you work harder, you will get a better grade next time.

Can you praise your own actions and be grateful for it every day? How do we create a better version of yourself?

It is a ‘PROGRESSION’. We are ‘BECOMING’ daily. We are becoming better or worse or flip-flopping between them.

As a result, most of us are stagnant. That’s why some of us are growing and some of us aren’t.

But, how do we make sure that we’re growing consistently?

How do we make growth a habit?

By recognizing and patting ourselves for the good actions and efforts we are putting in.

When we were little kids we have teachers, parents, and parent figures around us that are praising us.  If they are doing it the right way, they were praising us for what we did, not who we were.

Now, you are watching yourself. The only thing is, you are wearing these special glasses.

These glasses are like x-ray glasses. You see right through the skin into the bones. Like that, these x-ray glasses make you see right through the “negatives”. You can only see the positives.  Positives being actions that are creating the new you.  Those are the actions you are praising. You are catching yourself doing them and praising yourself for doing them.

Each action is a vote towards your ‘NEW YOU’.  You are literally creating you. You are shaping yourself one action at a time.

Being or becoming leads to doing.

Doing leads to having.

Also doing -ironically- leads to becoming.

That brings back to writing daily gratitudes about ourselves.

EVERY MORNING WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR DAILY GRATITUDES ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SETS OF GRATITUDES YOU WRITE IS ABOUT YOURSELF!

For example, 

• I woke up early yesterday morning. Good job!
• I contributed towards testing of business startup ideas we had. OMG! That saved a ton of time.
• I applied some ideas I got from ‘Being Obsessed Being Average’ by Grant Cardone to our mentorship business. I am still super excited about that. That was a major breakthrough I was looking for.
• Finally, we ended the night at 1:30 am.  It was a call with an entrepreneur from India.  We had an energizing call and discovered an idea we believe to be the next unicorn.  

Good job!

Pat, pat, pat!  

Stroke, stroke, stroke!

JOE’S REALIZATION

Joe noticed the more he does this, the more he becomes good at doing things. He has also learned to ignore the not-so-good things he’s doing, which means, the not-so-good things are atrophying as he wants them to due to a complete lack of energy or attention.

ATROPHYING YOUR NEGATIVE ACTIONS

So, how can you ignore the not-so-good things and can focus only on the good things you do every day?

Think of this analogy.

Suppose there are two phones. One is an iPhone that you want to charge. The other is an old flip phone that you don’t want to charge. You want to get rid of it.  Your attention is like plugging the phone in. If you give attention, you are plugging it in and charging it. If you don’t give attention, you’ll not charge.

That’s a good analogy to keep in mind. If you don’t give your bad actions any attention, they don’t get charged. They atrophy over time. You don’t repeat them. 

On the other hand, all the attention you are giving to your good actions is charging them and repeating them. To a point they become habits.

Of course, you can do this for yourself as well as others, especially, to kids. Also, your parents, if they’re senior citizens.

How about you? Can you do that?

Right now. Can you vote 10 times right now towards creating your future self?

What are the 10 things you did yesterday that you normally ignore by assuming “that’s you”?  Can you – instead – remember them and highlight them using a new highlighter called “CREATING YOU”?

Use it. It will change you. It will grow you into the person you want to become. Every day you are becoming. Until the day you die. Awesome, isn’t it?

So what’s the big idea?

This is not a big idea. This is a HUGE idea.  This is not 100 in 1000 out.

Do it. It is simple. It is mind-blowing.

Every day write down a few things you did yesterday that you are proud of.  Write down a few things you will do today that you will be proud of.  And pat yourself. Stroke yourself. Give yourself some good words of praise for what you did and will do.

However, being grateful in life will not only help you to develop a habit of consistent growth but will also change your perspective on miracles.

How? 

Watch this space to know how Gratitude can change your outlook about miracles.