416 - Feel More Grateful in 30 Seconds

0:00Feel super busy and stressed this holiday season? Well, today I'm sharing one of my favorite gratitude exercises ever. It just takes seconds and it can help you feel more grounded, more grateful, and present. Give it a try. Here in the US, we are just about to celebrate one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. I love it for two reasons. One, because I get to cook for my friends. And two, because I get to eat a lot of mashed potatoes. And those are two things I can do all day long. Now, this is also a time of the year when we all start to hear a lot about gratitude. And I love gratitude because I think it is the number one super tool to transform your life.

0:41But here's the thing. Gratitude can feel a little, you know, cliche. You might think like, oh, gratitude, I'm so over it. Been there, done that. It's so Oprah in the 90s. Here is the deal, though. If you've got gratitude fatigue, I can pretty much bet you're doing it wrong. I know, right? Who knew you could do gratitude wrong? I didn't know that until I read this here book by Robert Emmons called Gratitude Works. Now Robert is the leading researcher on gratitude. Now here's the thing, I want to teach you one trick that I learned from Robert that will help take your gratitude practice from something that's you know, kind of nice into a total miracle smoothie for your emotional well-being.

1:23Possible Vitamix not required. Now before I tell you this one strategy, I got to be upfront. This is about gratitude journaling. And before you go, ah, journaling, that's just too much work. I don't want to do it. Stop. Journaling is awesome. Two reasons. Number one, when you journal, you start to uncover personal insights about yourself, which can really help you unwire any negative patterns that you have. And we all have them. Number two, when you journal on the regular, you really develop discipline. And discipline is awesome for following through and getting results. Now, these two benefits never come when you just think about gratitude, so don't be so quick to dismiss the journal practice.

2:05Okay, so here is the big magic gratitude trick. If you want the most ROI for your gratitude practice, the dividends are in the details. It turns out that most of us are pretty lazy when it comes to our gratitude practice, kind of like this. Dear Gratitude Journal, I'm grateful for Josh. I'm grateful for my parents. I'm grateful for my team. I'm grateful for Kuma. I'm grateful for our audience. I'm grateful in general. What's wrong with that? It is way too general. So research shows that if we want the most bang for a gratitude buck, we have got to get specific. That means way more depth and less breath.

2:51Check Check this out. The University of Southern California did a 10-week study on gratitude journaling with three groups. The first group were generalists, writing down five general things a day they were grateful for. The second group got specific. They picked one thing a day and wrote five sentences about it. The third group wrote about ways which they were better off than other people. Excuse us. Here's the results. It turns out that the group that wrote five sentences about one thing were more elated excited, and alert than the other groups and less tired, sad, and lethargic. Bottom line, details equal dividends and I got to tell you this really really works.

3:33So I tried it. I am so grateful for Josh but instead of just saying I'm grateful for Josh, I wrote down five really specific things that I'm grateful for and I want to read them to you right now. So I'm grateful that over the 11 years that we've been together he's brought me a hot beverage in the morning at least 1500 times. He makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world because he's just so funny. He always says he's sorry first, even if I'm being overly sensitive, and not just to placate me, but because he genuinely is sorry. And he consistently helps me to slow down to enjoy life. And most importantly, he makes the most delicious blueberry banana walnut peanut butter pancakes for me and all my friends.

4:22Get some pancakes for you. Joshy. I love you. I love you too. See? This stuff works. Pancakes. Okay. So if you want to help spread the word about the right way to do gratitude, then you got to share this here tweetable. This, the pancakes? No, the tweetable. Okay.

4:44When it comes to gratitude, the dividends are in the details. Now, before you go, remember, 2025 is going to be here before you know it. Go to marieforleo.com slash dream club and get on the VIP list so we can make all your big dreams come true together.