Welcome back to the show. I’m really pumped to tell you how gratitude changed my life and my business. You’ll hear about my exact practices, how gratitude became not just a thing I do consciously anymore but a constant mental state. I’ll share examples on how you can apply it to your life and business and I’m also about to get really personal today.
Tune into the episode below:
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Show Notes:
- My daily gratitude practices
- Using scripting to claim your desires
- A simple ritual that helped me overcome anxiety around money
- How to bring pleasure and flow in your business
- The surgery I’ll have this year and how I went from anxious to empowered
- Being grateful for how privileged you are
- How gratitude helped me accept my dad and stop trying to change him
- How a heartbreak speeded up my healing journey
- Luxury problems vs survival problems
- An exercise for you
Mentioned:
Transcript
My gratitude practices
I repeat things in my mind I’m grateful for. When waking up, at any moment of the day when I remind myself of that, when going to sleep, any time I feel upset.
I thank for it ALL – what I have, what I’ve had (including the challenges), and what I’m about to have (but with the energy of already having it)
When I feel angry, sad, ashamed or else, I remind myself that I’ve simply forgotten what I’m grateful for in that moment. A grateful person can’t be feeling anything negative at the same time. So I first feel the negative feeling and release it (not push it away or ignore it), and then become grateful again.
I thank for every single person that interacts with my business in some way
When a student enrolls in a course of mine, I say ‘Thank you’ + their name out loud and truly send them this energy of gratitude
I also feel thankful for the students that are about to enroll in my programs in the future. There are ways to go further with this practice. You might either put sticky notes on your wall at home for the exact number of students you’re calling in for your new program and have trust that they will all show up and join.
Personally, I don’t set goals for how many students I’ll welcome into a program anymore because that feels limiting to me. But for coaching or if that’s more your style, it can work.
Another way is to use scripting – the practice of writing down something you desire in as much detail as possible as if it has already happened and feel the joy and gratitude for it right now.
You can give your students names and welcome them, you can imagine the payment notifications coming, the total amount of the launch and even how you’ll spend it.
With this, you’re claiming your desires as if they are already yours so the Universe delivers. It also helps you be high-vibe when selling the program. If not else, it makes you feel better and more grateful right now, which always works well.
Here’s another gratitude practice, related to money this time.
I open my bank account daily, even if I don’t feel like, look at the numbers and am just grateful for both the payments coming in and the expenses.
I replace lack with abundance especially when the numbers aren’t looking good, the bills are bigger than I expected or when I’m worried about money. So I’ve trained myself to stop feeling anxious and to turn logging into my bank account into a quick daily abundance ritual as I like to call it.
I teach that and many more wealth practices that totally helped me transform my beliefs around money, heal my money story, and manage my finances with confidence, inside my 3-Day Money Magic Training which is one of the bonuses inside Bold Business School – my program for course creators.
If this is the first time you’re tuning into the show, well Bold Business School is my signature membership experience and it’s this 3-month journey I’m taking you on to building a digital product business set up for unlimited freedom. You can learn all the juicy details here and also join the waitlist.
Grateful when working
You can also practice gratitude when doing your work. For example yesterday, I was working on Module 2 of Bold Business School and it felt so pleasurable, so right and so meaningful that I had to stop every and now and then and just really soak it all in. That’s how business gets to be when you’ve built it consciously, have followed your intuition along the way and are focused on serving.
If you aren’t doing the work you love just yet, then be grateful for whatever it is you get to do because it’s getting you in the right direction.
I know it’s hard when you don’t know if things will change, or when or how, but this part isn’t up to you. Your job is to feel good and grateful right now and have a vision for the future.
Also don’t forget to practice gratitude for how good things will be some time from now. It takes patience to get to the point where you really get over the negatives of your current situation and only keep in mind the positives, and feel truly blessed without wanting to rush anything or change it.
Think about it. If you are absolutely sure that you will have the business and life you want some time from now, then why not start feeling good about it today? Become the person living that life and running that business on the inside first. Then you’ll be surprised at how quickly the Universe will catch up and change your reality.
Gratitude and challenges
Another way gratitude helps me is that whenever I know I’m about to face a challenge or when I’m in the middle of a really emotional and chaotic situation, I remind myself of how fucking privileged I am.
This is the first time I’m going to mention that here, but later this year I’m about to have my first and biggest surgery in my life. It’s a preventative double mastectomy with reconstruction which means that I have breast cancer in my family, like a lot.
And instead of continuing to go for check-ups often and know that it’s much likely it will happen one day (and that one day can be sooner cause it’s not true after 50 or even after 40 is when that hits), I choose to break this generational pattern and take the health in my future in my hands.
That procedure will continue for 6 months and it starts with the breast tissue being removed, the chest muscle being moved, then the so-called expanders being placed inside which will be filled slowly over the next weeks till they get to the size I want them to be. Meanwhile, the chest muscle will be expanded slowly. Later on, the expanders will be replaced with implants.
It took me nearly 2 years to take this decision and prepare for it mentally to the point where I replace the anxiety, fear and self-doubt with deep gratitude and empowerment.
How I practice gratitude in this case is that first I’m privileged to be able to use a healthcare system that encourages me to have that procedure and that covers all the costs. I’m privileged to be educated on the topic and know my options and to make this choice without anyone making me do it.
I’m also privileged to choose when that happens, to be the first woman in my mother’s side of the family to have this option before actually having breast cancer. And I’m privileged for having a business that allows me to step away from it for as long as I need whenever I need.
So how can I complain, play the victim or be negative, when there is so much to be grateful for?
I hope this example helps you. Just turn things around and apply it to whatever hardship you’re going through.
Gratitude and pain
Seriously, you can find reasons to be thankful for in anything. I switched my perspective on my relationship with my dad and disappointments and pain coming from family situations just by realizing how it was all meant to be this way.
I would have never experienced the kind of personal and spiritual growth if it wasn’t for him to bring up all my anger on the surface and to cause many unresolved issues. I took responsibility for all that, stopped blaming or trying to change him, and accepted that he did the best he could as a dad and I was given this dad for a reason. The lessons I learned are probably more valuable than someone who had it easy.
I’m also deeply grateful for the love I attracted some time ago and the heartbreak it led to because it showed me all the parts of myself I haven’t healed. So you can bet I dedicated a year to doing just that.
If it wasn’t for that journey, I wouldn’t have attracted exactly the kind of man I want now and I definitely wouldn’t have any idea on how to maintain something healthy and non-toxic.
So when I look back, I have nothing but gratitude. When anger or pain come, because there are always triggers and that’s alright, I stay with them and then look for what is unhealed.
I gotta tell you that this healing journey I’ve been on has been the most challenging and uncomfortable one but also the most rewarding one. And gratitude is one of the main ingredients here.
Gratitude and problems
I also just remembered that sometimes when I am going through something, like literally experiencing heavy emotions and I’m in the middle of giving them a place in my mind and releasing them, I might be having a call with my mum.
She’s my biggest listener. And for someone who isn’t on a personal growth and spiritual journey, or at least not on a conscious one, it’s their instinct to start feeling bad for the other person. To want to make the problem go away for them, or want them to stop feeling this emotion as soon as possible and tell them what they wanna hear.
And I’m like: ‘Mom, this is not bad. I want to be going through this. I’m just telling you the facts and what this might mean.’
Then I remind her that I’m happy, even if I’m crying right now or am really anxious about something. That this problem I’m talking about is a luxury problem. Because if I have the privilege to be concerned about something like not knowing how things will turn out, the challenges that come with the huge goals I set, or the fact that I’ll have to leave some next milestones for later, the discomfort that comes with levelling up, or love life problems, or else, I’m good.
Because these are not financial or health problems. When we have these, we don’t get to worry about anything else. It’s simply not an option, not until our current issue is resolved.
This is the moment to remember that people in some countries are born in poverty, dealing with war, and their problems are about survival. Me and you are privileged. If you’re listening to this podcast, and have the luxury to be interested in mindset work and business, you’re doing great.
Next, I want to briefly discuss how gratitude changes our brain.
Gratitude changes your brain
Gratitude is more powerful than we give it credit for. Whenever we express gratitude, the brain releases dopamine and serotonin – the chemicals that make us happy, and the levels of cortisol – the stress hormone – decrease.
Being grateful changes the neutral structures in the brain. Because of its neuroplasticity, its ability to literally be rewired, the more we practice gratitude, the more of a constant state it becomes.
It gets easier, the brain then recognizes it as one of its main functions. You can basically keep in mind what you’re grateful for all day every day and just wait and see how it changes your outlook on life and your relationships. Because this is what helped me stop screaming at people and blaming them and wishing they were someone other than who they are right now.
Final words
Now it’s your turn. If this episode inspired you, let me know. Message on Instagram @letsreachsuccess and let’s share what we’re thankful for.
Of course I’m truly grateful for having you here, for your time and support. If there’s one thing you want to do now and are already in the energy of gratitude, sit down and write a list of 20 things you’re grateful for. From the most obvious one, or objects or people around you, to the big things, to the challenges, to what you’ve been through, and so on.
20 is the minimum but continue for as long as you can. And if you want to form one new habit, do that daily. It can be 3 or 5 things, of course.
I don’t write them anymore because thinking about them and feeling that deep gratitude is already easy for me. But if you’re just starting out, it probably won’t turn into a habit.
Just like if you try meditation for the first time, your mind will wander in different directions. So you’ll feel like it didn’t work and you might not want to repeat it. That’s why writing it down is a good way to get into the routine.
Have a beautiful day and let’s be fucking grateful!