Attitude & Effort - Change Your Thinking

It's 6:00am on a Monday. Your alarm clock wakes you up, as intended. You hesitantly open your eyes to the light peeking through the blinds & you reach over to turn your alarm off. It's been a long week so you drift back into sleep just to snap your eyes open and realize twenty more minutes has passed and you are now officially running late.

Initially, you are annoyed with yourself and feel a little discombobulated, as if your day has started off on the wrong foot. But has it? Should this dictate how the rest of your day goes? It shouldn't. There are two things that you control entirely. Your attitude and your effort. The way you show up has a huge impact not only on your day but your family's and colleague's day as well.

It's no secret when you're mentally spent, you feel these effects physically & when you're physically exhausted it's hard to focus on whatever task is at hand. When you complain or think negatively the body acts on this by producing corresponding chemicals that weaken the physiology. Only 20% of American's rate gratitude as a positive and constructive emotion (compared to that of the 50% of Europeans). Studies have proven that being a grateful human increases empathy and decreases aggression. Gratitude also improves psychological and physical health as well. Last, but definitely not least, it improves sleep!

Did you know that 80 percent of humans thoughts are negative? What would our world look like if we reprogrammed the brain to think differently. The first person to define the term neuroplasticity was a polish neuroscientist by the name of Jerry Konorski. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change continuously throughout an individual's life. This means that we can change the way we think on a day to day basis. It takes a very high level of consciousness to be able to recognize this in the moment, but the benefits of this can literally change your brain's neural pathways. This is bio-hacking in its simplest form!

A personal goal of mine lately (aside from working up the courage to publish an article) has been to actively recognize if I am thinking negative thoughts and to change this perspective in the moment. The changes have been impactful to my relationships, my outlook, & my success in all aspects of life. I have practiced writing down 10 things I am grateful for each day. These ten things shouldn't be statements such as "I am grateful to be alive." or "I am grateful for my family". They should be specific to that day and detailed. In the spirit of transparency, I am not as consistent as I would like to be with this (always room to improve, right?). Although, I find that when I am consistent - I'm more positive, I smile more, I feel lighter, and those around me feel my warmth radiating.

So tell me, will you change the way you think?