FOCUS 2, EXERCISE IN GRATITUDE

You are what you focus on

You know that when you have pain somewhere—let’s say in your back—and you’re constantly focusing on the pain and thinking about it, maybe even talking about it, you’re aware of it all the time. You get tired and drained of energy. The pain intensifies and becomes unbearable. Then a good friend comes to visit, and you talk about everything under the sun. After your friend leaves, you realize that your back didn’t hurt at all while he was there. Maybe you start to focus on your back again, and the pain returns.

Your mind works the same way. Whatever you focus on, you get more of.

So when you focus on the negative aspects of your life—the things that aren’t working—that’s exactly what you’ll get more of. You can choose to focus on the good, positive things instead. This applies both to yourself and how you see yourself, as well as to how you view the world around you and your daily life.

A negative outlook on life

My thesis is that a negative outlook on life is partly innate.

Worrying is part of our species’ survival: Do I have enough winter supplies? Could I get hurt if I go outside? Will someone attack me? Am I good enough—or could I risk being cast out of the group? etc.

In our modern age, many of these concerns are greatly exaggerated: The supermarket is open; social services exist; the streets are lit.

We spend an enormous amount of time worrying about things we should only worry about if they actually happened. This makes everyday life dreary, and in extreme cases, other people will look elsewhere, because negativity and constant worry erode our joy and zest for life.

A positive outlook on life

A positive outlook on life is an asset in everyday life. Being able to go through life with confidence makes things much easier—partly because you don’t have to spend unnecessary hours worrying and feeling anxious, but also because other people tend to gravitate toward happy, positive individuals. You’ll simply make more friends and find it easier to get along with others.

As an added bonus, research shows that positive people live longer and have a better chance of recovery from life-threatening cancer.

Cultivate a positive outlook on life

Positivity and gratitude are closely linked. When you realize how much there is to be grateful for in life, you automatically become more positive. When you focus on the good things in life, your brain adapts to see even more good things. Your tendency to spot all the negative things diminishes, and you become more positive, happier, and more carefree.

A very simple way to cultivate more positivity is therefore to practice gratitude.

Gratitude Exercise

Every night before you go to sleep, write down three things you’ve been grateful for during the day.

Your gratitude should be directed toward something you experienced that day.

You’re not allowed to write the same word more than once, so once you’ve written a word on the paper, you can’t write the same one again on another day.

It’s very common for people to start by writing down things they’re grateful for that focus on all the big things in their lives: their children, their health, their home, and so on. After a few weeks, once you’ve expressed gratitude for all those big things, you might start to see things from a different perspective.

As citizens of a democratic, prosperous country, there are many things we don’t even think about. We forget to be grateful that we can get an education, that our country is peaceful, and that we are not subjected to torture. These are also big things, but at some point they too run their course, and that is when the real exercise begins: You will be forced to look for new things to be grateful for that you haven’t written down before. You begin to become more mindful of the positive experiences in your everyday life.

Whereas at first you wrote down the big, obvious things, now it’s the little things in life that many people forget to notice and be grateful for: Winter is over, and the birds are singing outside again. I picked some flowers to take home from the forest. My neighbor gave me a big smile.

The little things in our daily lives that we forget to appreciate.

There is no time limit for this exercise. You can do it from now until the day you die— and it will continue to give you a happier and more positive mindset.