Going Further by Giving Thanks: Four Ways Gratitude Helps You Achieve Your Goals

0:28Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt. at all. No, I mean, I'm grateful for what we learned about Zoom through the pandemic. And I think it gave us more capability. And there's some things we can do without being face-to-face. But man. You're going to hear a conversation. It's better when people are doing what you should do when you get first. Well, it's deepened by appreciation for face-to-face contact. Yeah. 1 ,000%. Okay. So maybe we should explain why we've been on a hiatus. Or maybe we should explain what the heck that word means. Well, we're going to need Joel for that. Okay. So a hiatus is a pause and we've been on pause with this podcast for a couple of months.

1:11Yeah. How long? I don't know. Probably longer than a couple of months. Yeah. I'm trying to... Somebody's going to respond to us and tell us exactly how long. Yeah, exactly. And then we'll be embarrassed. So why didn't you want to record for the last several months, Megan? Well, I mean, I had a few things going on. Well, we basically re-engineered the business. We did. We re-engineered the business. And in fact, we are going to be making some pretty big changes on the podcast that we're really excited about. We made the decision on the business side to sunset our coaching program, Business Accelerator.

1:42I know. So the name of the podcast is going to change from Business Accelerator to the Double Win. And the reason we decided to sunset the business, the coaching part of the business, not the whole business, don't panic people, is that we are really excited about making it nearly impossible for people not to get the double win. And the double win means winning at work and succeeding at life. And so, you know, we fundamentally over time realized we had two different businesses. We had the full focus planner part of the business, which is all about helping people to achieve the double win through planning and so forth.

2:19and then we had the business accelerator side, which was our business coaching program. And like a lot of things in life, you know, you, at some point you realize you have to make a decision because you, it's kind of like we had one leg on, on two boats and they were going in different directions, you know, and they were getting wider and wider. And it was like, okay, you're either going to fall down in the middle or you got to pick one boat you want to ride. We were about to get chicken winged. We were about to get chicken winged. And I think we came to the conclusion that our calling in the world is really to help people get this double win, that that's where the most profound part of our stories are personally.

2:55That's what's been most meaningful to us. And it's really where we feel like we can add the most value and are uniquely called to serve you guys, our listeners. And we feel like the planner, frankly, is the gateway drug to that experience. You know, that's how people begin. Wow, you just said that. I know, I just said that out loud. Wow. But it's the way that people get into that idea of the double win to realize that life is multifaceted. Right. It's not just about work. It's about a holistic life. Right. And we're passionate about that. We are really passionate about that.

3:33So here's the plan. we're going to do a five-part series called prepare to uh win double in 2024 is that right yeah prepare to win double like the double win but it's backwards you know like a little play there you know i think i'm a little dyslexic are you because when i saw that i thought it was double win and now i see the play on it prepare to win double in 2024 right so five episodes should i preview these yeah okay this first episode the one we're going to do here is because this is airing right before Thanksgiving, going further by giving thanks. This is a great lever. This is like best kept secret of achievement.

4:12It is. And happiness and happiness. The second episode in this series is going to be rescuing your 2023 goals. So before we move out of 2023, you know, if you feel like, Oh my gosh, there's a goal at risk. I'm not going to make it. We're going to help you rescue those goals. And I don't know about you, but I just completed my quarterly preview the time of this recording. And there are some goals that I'm off track on that I'm not giving up on. Good. And I'm really excited about this conversation about how to rescue those goals because it's not too late. Even if you're listening to this episode and it like Thanksgiving's already happened, it's December 1st, it's December 15th, whatever, not too late.

4:52In fact, it can kind of work for you. And we're going to talk about that. Absolutely. Okay. Third episode is going to be filling out your wish list for 2024. Ooh, I can't wait for that one. I know. I can't wait to hear what's on your wish list. I think part of why I love doing that is because, and this is why I like goal setting, it gives you a chance to reimagine the future. Right. Because it hasn't happened yet. Yeah. Anyway, well, I could get philosophical. We could have all these episodes right now. I know. Fourth episode, choosing habits or achievement goals. Yep. Can we make a distinction between those two?

5:24And then the fifth episode, jumping into 2024 with confidence. So today, going further by giving thanks. Yes. So an episode on gratitude. And this is one of the reasons why I love Thanksgiving so much. I'm not sure it's my favorite holiday, but it's definitely one of the big three. So we're in this season of gratitude. but what I think a lot of people don't appreciate or understand is that gratitude is essential for goal achievement. I've been a lot of research around this but the more grateful you are the more likely you are to accomplish big goals. Why? Well we'll get into that as we unfold this but gratitude is like the emotional engine of goal achievement and when you're thankful it builds your confidence.

6:16And when you feel confident, then you're willing to take on big challenges. I think that's really true. I do too. I think that a lot of that is because when you're not grateful, for example, not intentionally grateful, we know this from our mindset work, your brain is all about scarcity and protecting you from danger. I mean, we just did not evolve over time to be people who are running around feeling like there's enough of everything. It's like all, it's all about survival and making sure that we have enough of things. And so scarcity is our default mode. Yep. And if you're in a place of scarcity, then you're not going to probably be very creative or resourceful.

6:58And if you have a really big goal that you're still trying to accomplish here in 2023, if you're in a place of scarcity, there's not enough time. You know, I don't have the resources to do this thing. You're probably not going to accomplish it. But if you take some time to, to exercise gratitude for all that you do have, it makes you think about possibility in a different way. Well, and one of the things we'll get into this in the practical application toward the end of this episode, but one of the things or one of the reasons why I try to plug in gratitude and wins into everything, especially before planning is that when you're grateful, when you cataloged your wins, you plan differently.

7:39You really do. And honestly, we forget the things that we're, we're thankful for. And I just want to say too, and I think you'll concur with this, but when we talk about gratitude, from my perspective, I'm grateful to God. Now I'm grateful to my wife. I'm grateful to you. I'm grateful to all kinds of people. But I'm not a big fan of this idea of just sort of being sort of grateful to the impersonal universe, because I don't think the universe really cares. Right. But I do believe in God. Right. And I do believe that God brings all these things into my life. That every good and perfect gift. Yes.

8:16Comes from him. Comes from him. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not. That is our orientation. And I think that fundamentally is why we think gratitude is so important. It's actually a spiritual discipline. It is. Yeah. It is. And by the way, little known fact, for those of you that are of the Christian faith, you know, one of the things to know is that, you know, in many traditions, they call Holy communion, the Eucharist. And the Eucharist comes from a Greek word that means giving thanks. And so at the core of who we are is this need to give thanks. God has created us that way, to acknowledge that there are these gifts that come to us.

8:58And I think that's a really powerful thing to remember because, you know, I remember reading this book by Alexander Schmemann one time where he talked about man is basically Eucharistic. Fundamentally, that's our nature, is to give thanks. And unfortunately, it's easy to forget. It is. And the calling back to our true spiritual center and who God's call is to be is to return to that place of thankfulness. Yeah, I love that. And as it turns out, it's very beneficial for achieving things in our lives as well. Yep.

9:34let's talk about this scientific example yeah that we have in our notes okay so i am looking at my notes for this um but apparently there were a couple of researchers who designed this study and they were trying to answer the question what happens when intentionally grateful people work toward a goal compared to everybody else like does it even make a difference and basically they had participants provide a list of goals that they hope to reach over a two-month period of time. So it's a pretty short period of time. Might be about as much time as there is left on the year when you're listening to this.

10:10But they also had participants keep a gratitude journal. And they checked back about 10 weeks later and guess what they found? I'm guessing that the ones that were grateful, just a wild guess, were more successful in achieving their goals. They were. The grateful participants were significantly closer than the rest to achieving their goals. And here's what they concluded. Basically, gratitude enhances effortful goal striving. That's kind of a mouthful. The gratitude enhances effortful goal striving. So how can you put that difference maker to work for you as we start transitioning to 2024? By the way, one of the things about that quote, gratitude enhances effortless goal?

10:53Effortful. Effortful. That's a mouthful. That's a hard word to say. Yeah. And if I were editing these guys, I'd say, okay, now tell me that in English. Right. Basically, if you're trying to accomplish something, being grateful is going to be helpful to you. Thank you. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Now we've got the cookies down where we can reach them. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to cover four ways that gratitude helps you to achieve your goals. And then spend a moment talking about some ways we can intentionally cultivate gratitude because both of us have been very intentional about that, and we'll share some of our best practices.

11:24So the first way is that gratitude keeps us hopeful. Yeah. I love this because the reality is we live in a time that is hopeless in a lot of ways. I mean, I think a lot of people looking at the state of the world, whatever your perspective is, would be given toward feeling a level of hopelessness about how things are and where we're going. And gratitude is fundamentally generative as compared to degenerative. So it's creating life where a lot of things, for example, focusing on what you lack is going to be degenerative. It's going to be life-taking instead of life-giving. And gosh, that's so helpful.

12:13Well, it is because if you don't think that your effort makes a difference, or that God's not for you, it's easy to be cynical and just say, what's the use of setting goals? What's the use of striving for anything? Because people have done that in the past, and maybe they've been disappointed, and so they just stopped doing it now. And I would say that there is this spirit, maybe it's the whole world, but in our country, of cynicism. Or nihilism. Yeah, even worse. So sort of this malaise, you know, where people are like, hey, no matter what we do, nothing changes, so why make the effort? And part of that is, frankly, is a negativity bias.

12:56Because one of the things that we know from books like Factfulness is that things are actually improving. But the problem is that negativity bias, which is basically what the news media runs on. Well, it's also what our brain runs on. It's what our brain, well, and that's why the news media runs on that. Yeah. Because we have this bias towards negativity. And so the news is going to try to make things look the most negative because you can't look away. And so, and I'm not even faulting them. I'm just saying it's just, you know, it's just baked into our system. But I'm just saying that you have to be intentional to pull yourself out of that nosedive of cynicism and nihilism and, you know, malaise and decide to give thanks.

13:39And when you do, the first thing you'll notice is that it begins to restore your hope. You go, okay, maybe things could be different because if I'm thankful for something that happened in the past, I'm recognizing that something happened in my past, maybe it's the recent past, maybe it's the distant past that is worth remembering because left to myself, I will forget those things. And I've done this exercise like every week when I'm doing my wins for the previous week. Yeah. In your full focus planner. In my full focus planner. Or my quarterly preview. Yep. I forget the wins. Oh, absolutely. You know, when you were talking, I was thinking there is something about gratitude.

14:19That's a fundamental act of intentional remembrance. Ooh, that's good. You know that you can't be grateful unless you're being reflective about what's happened or what's around you. And what we know from neuroscience is that our brains are not very good at remembering things accurately, and they tend to remember things more negatively than they were. And, you know, if you were to ask five people what happened back then, you know, for some event, they would all be different, be game of telephone. But this is a way of saying, I'm going to be intentional about remembering the past and looking for something in particular.

14:55God's faithfulness, times when things worked out, things that went better than I thought, things that were a good surprise. And you're intentionally remembering those, and you're making a note about them. And that makes you hopeful that it's not just scary bad stuff that happens in the future. It's also amazing moments of provision that you couldn't have planned for. You could make the case that if you were looking at just the Bible, that the entire story from beginning to end is a story of forgetfulness. Yes, exactly. God has to send the prophets and preachers and other people to remind people.

15:29In fact, there's this passage in Deuteronomy 8, and I don't intend to make this a Bible study, but it just says, it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to make wealth. But then the next exhortation is, and don't forget who gave you that power. And I think it's easy to think, you know, we've done these things and gratitude makes us hopeful because we realize that we have now access to more resources than just us. It's not, it doesn't all depend on us. It doesn't all depend upon us. Okay. So that's the first way. That's the first way, which is kind of funny because the next way, way number two is that gratitude reminds us that we have agency.

16:08And first of all, I think the word agency is a really important word here because it's not control. Say more about that. Well, I think agency means that we, we have some kind of a partnership with God. Like we're, we are influence. We're actively participating and showing up in our lives and we can affect the outcome of things, but we're also not diluting ourselves to say that we're just complete masters of our own destiny. We're the center of the universe and we can control everything that happens to us because what happens then is when something like your heart attack or something totally out of your control happens, some tragedy or trauma happens, then all of a sudden that belief is completely questioned and shaken.

16:52Everything you thought you believed in starts to fall apart. And so I think agency is an important word because there's still a recognition that we don't have total control, but we do have the ability to show us in very meaningful ways to direct our lives. Okay. So I have to tell you a story that just happened to me a couple of weeks ago. So I just commemorated the one-year anniversary of my heart attack. So that was on September the 21st. And then two days later, I had bypass surgery. And so I was, to be honest, I was feeling kind of melancholy. And because remembering that, it kind of all seems like a blur.

17:28And what the heck happened? Well, I went back to read my journal entries. And I read my journal entry for September the 21st, 2022, to the day the heart attack happened. So this was like before it happened, before it happened early in the morning. So I'm, I'm journaling early in the morning. Little did I know that I would have a heart attack that day. Like within an hour. Yeah. So I laid out my plan for the day. You know, I had my daily big three. I had my plan certainly for that, that week. I had all these things I was going to accomplish and you know, I was excited. And even in my journal, I was like, okay, I'm excited about this day.

18:05So then I go out and have a heart attack and all that's in the dumper, all those plans. Now, it would be easy to say, and by the way, I did all these things leading up to my heart attack. I was, as you know, very focused on my health, working out, had a nutritionist, great doctors, all that stuff. I knew I had an issue with some calcium buildup, but I was really taking control of everything I could. And yet I still had a heart attack. Now, does that make me want to stop planning? No, it doesn't. But it could. I could say, what's the use? Bring on the ice cream and the cupcakes because it doesn't matter what you eat.

18:40And I'm going to be a couch potato because it doesn't matter if I exercise. I can have all that. Like a sense of fatalism. Yeah, exactly. But I didn't. I just said, look, and it's a distinction that you're making. I have agency, but not control. I can influence these things. I don't want to continue to influence these things because my influence matters. The actions I take matter. But at the same time, what you're saying is that we have to approach everything even today with an open hand. Well, it's kind of humility really, which I think is part of gratitude. Gratitude, you can't be grateful if you think you made it all happen.

19:17There's an orientation of humility that says, I couldn't have made this all happen. And therefore, gratitude is an appropriate response. And yet we have agency. In fact, psychologist Albert Bandura detailed four properties of agency. This is cool. Intention, forethought, action, and self-reflection. Intention, forethought, action, and self-reflection. And gratitude really optimizes all four of these things, especially self-reflection, going back to the idea of the remembrance, intentional remembrance. Yes. This is, you know, we'll get into it later, but this is one of the reasons to journal. Yeah.

20:00I know. I'm not a, I'm not a journaler. Every time we do an episode where you talk about journaling, I'm just like, well, I used to actually, but we should, we should talk about that. We should do a whole episode on that because I think it's people make it too hard. Yeah. And I I've really tried, and we have this in the full focus journal, but some prompts that can make it easier. Yeah. And And I would say also that when I was your age, I wasn't journaling. Right. You know, so that's. Some days I'm happy that I got a shower and maybe walked around the block. Because that's the secret life I'm in.

20:43Okay. So that second way gratitude reminds us that we have agency. Third way is that gratitude improves our frustration tolerance. Okay, so if you're going to accomplish anything in life. Anything. Anything. You've got to be able to overcome frustration. Yeah. And the longer you can endure frustration, the more you'll accomplish. I can think back when I was a kid, and my dad got me into sales really early. So it was kind of funny because my dad was a salesperson. And so he had me selling, my very first sales job ever was selling cable subscriptions door-to-door. Wow, I don't think I knew this.

21:25Yeah, and so we would, this was back before, you know, cable television was everywhere. And it was a big deal. And so these cable companies would employ a veritable army of salespeople to go door-to-door and pitch people on cable. And so one of the things that was hard, first of all, you have to overcome a lot to put yourself in a situation where you're going to knock on somebody's door. And I was probably 15, you know, at the time. And people would say no. Most people would say no. And my dad said to me, he said, well, son, every no moves you one step closer to a yes. So that hope, to kind of go back to our first way was what enabled me to persist in the frustration because there were times when I was like, you know, this is useless.

22:17I'm frustrated. People aren't saying yes. I just need to quit. But what I, and then later when I got into another sales job, this was actually when I was a senior at Baylor university, I was calling churches, trying to sell pastors on using in our educational products. Wow. And I got it so dialed in that I knew if I made 24 calls that day, which was about what I would do every day, if I made 24 calls, I'd sell eight of them. Now, here was what was cool. Amazing. It was literally an algorithm. Sometimes those eight would come at the end of the day. I'd go 16 no's. And then those eight, those last eight would all say yes.

22:55But if you had given up at 16, that would have been it. That's exactly right. Yeah. And so frustration tolerance is the key to success. I think it really is. I think it is the key to success. I think if you just simply don't give up and it's simple, but not easy to do that, you will win eventually because you're just going to be tenacious. Yeah. You just don't, you just don't quit. I said in one context, I think it might've been in one of my books. I forget what I write. But anyway, one of the things I said was, uh, you can't succeed if you don't start and you can't fail if you don't quit. Yeah.

23:28And I really think that's true. I think it is too. The people that are the most successful aren't the brightest. They're not the most educated. They're not the best connected. They're not the best resourced. They're just the people that refuse to quit. And there's tons of stories of that. But how does gratitude improve our ability to endure frustration? Well, one of the things that's going on with frustration tolerance is you have to be willing to feel frustrated and not quit because something in the future is worth being persistent for. Well, if you can be intentionally grateful along the way, then you can see the little wins that are happening.

24:09You can notice, again, that idea of intentional remembrance. You can notice these things that are happening that are positive that give you a sense of progress even when it feels like you're not making progress, even when it feels like you want to quit. It's just like a little shot in the arm of keep going. Something's working. Keep going. Something's working. And that's a powerful strategy to use when emotionally you're getting to the end of your frustration and tolerance. It's kind of like you top off your gas tank with just enough gas to get to the next gas station. Thomas Edison. I don't know if the story is true or if it's, you know, apocryphal, but, you know, supposedly after he had tried 10 ,000 things, somebody came to him and said, why don't you quit?

24:56You know, aren't you frustrated because none of these things you've tried have worked? And he said, no, I, now I know 10 ,000 things that don't work. Yeah. It's like the sunk cost fallacy, but in a good way. Yeah. It's like, it's working for you. Well, it's like, can you be thankful when you fail incrementally toward your ultimate success? Yeah. Yes. If you keep an open mind and if you're willing to learn and adjust, And if you can iterate on that, absolutely. So gratitude is going to keep you in the game longer. So you're going to be less likely to give up on your goals if you're grateful. So it's just another reason to be grateful.

25:30Third way.

25:35Fourth way. Gratitude makes us more resourceful. Yeah. So part of this goes back to the first way. Being hopeful puts us in a place of abundance instead of scarcity. so we're not like, oh, I don't have any money. I don't have any time. I don't have any of this. I don't have any of that. But when we're grateful, it makes us realize everything we do have. You know, I've got, like in that situation where I was selling door-to-door cable, you know, I can still go to the next door. I can still knock on that door. You know, I can be grateful for the - There's still daylight. Still daylight. You know, everything you need to succeed.