Practicing Gratitude
with The -C- Coach.
Introducing the third wellbeing pillar:
Gratitude.
Hi there,
Here you’ll find advice from me, The -C- Coach, on how to directly increase your happiness levels by 25% - by establishing a daily habit of gratitude practice. All you need to do is invest 5 minutes every day for at least 3 weeks.
Let’s take a look at the results* of the Gratitude survey. We are a community of people struggling to live in the present although it’s clear we do have a high awareness of being thankful for the small things and most of us practice gratitude - but not consistently. And so, we miss out on (by far!) the easiest opportunity to increase our general happiness. If everyone practiced daily gratitude then we could see a big positive shift in people’s positive outlook.
We’ve started the work on managing your mindset and how to challenge negative thoughts and your inner sabotage; and now we connect this to the power of gratitude practice to start feeling positive psychological and mental health impacts.
*Results are a snapshot as of 12-May-23 at 11:00CET.
Do your thoughts live mostly in the past, present or future?
With only 16.67% of the community living in the present, very few of us feel a sense of peace. Nearly half of our HROI members, a whopping 43.33%, are living anxiously worrying about the future; and 20% feel low living in the past. That’s one in five of us unable to let go of the past and most likely dealing with ups and downs of depression.
It’s clear that some of us still struggle to have self-awareness of our thoughts at all as 20% haven’t noticed where their thoughts are. If we are able to invest 0.5% of our time to practice daily gratitude, we focus our brain to live in the present. That could support a healthier mindset for 63.33% of our community!
When was the last time you expressed or felt thankful for the small things in your life?
Good news! We have a solid foundation here to build our daily gratitude practice! Nearly half of the HROI community are thankful for the small things in life, which added to 36.67% of us expressing gratitude within the last week, that’s a positive result with 80% of us with an awareness of thankfulness.
Imagine the positive shift you could make if you build on this. Not only being thankful for the small things but expanding your thankfulness to all areas of your life and showing appreciation to yourself - every day. How you feel about yourself, your self-esteem and your confidence could be positively impacted within 3 weeks of practicing gratitude.
To the 6.67% of us who are not sure of its importance and the 13.33% of us who haven’t expressed gratitude in a while - the cognitive science and extensive research speak for themselves.
Do you feel you mainly have a positive or negative outlook?
So we have a good foundation seen in the results of question 2, now let’s see where your positive outlook fits. It’s very concerning that nearly 1 in 3 of us, 30% of our community, is in a negative mindset most of the time and with 43.33% of us allowing negativity to creep in - this connects to the results in question 1 where the majority of us are living in the future or the past.
You can’t maintain a positive outlook if you are not living in the present. With only 20% of us always having a positive outlook, again it correlates with the results in question 1 where 16.67% of us live in the present. There is a real window of opportunity, 80% of us, to improve your mental health and mindset resilience, and be a better version of you - merely by practicing thankfulness.
The -C- Coach advice column.
The -C- Coach is responding to the stories you have submitted. For each wellbeing pillar, we're choosing one of your stories and sharing guidance and support on how you can incorporate positive changes in your life.
Dear The -C- Coach,
"I need your help to change my negativity and moaning. I just find myself in this negative mind frame where I’m nagging my partner about him doing more house chores in our apartment, or that we don't do enough things together (even though we work together at home pretty much most days). I find I am moaning to my friends about him as well, which is crazy because I do love our relationship. I didn't even know I was so negative until my boyfriend pointed it out to me that all I do is moan and he even said that he sees my friends distancing themselves from me. He says that I’ve always wanted more and I don’t appreciate what I have, and even that I don’t really see him for who he is or appreciate him as a partner. I feel like I have to change the complainer inside me otherwise I'm worried I'm going to lose my boyfriend of five years, but maybe worse, I'm never going to know if I've got it good or not. (If that makes sense?!) Help!"
- Joana, 28, Marketing Manager
Hi there Joana,
Firstly thank you for sharing such an intimate part of your life with us. I understand this might feel disconcerting that you don’t feel you can see yourself in a negative mind frame. However, now you’re conscious, you’ve accepted it, and you have more self-awareness of what’s going on. So please, take a deep breath and show yourself a lot of self-kindness here.
You clearly care about your partner and you have hit upon an important point that if we do not adopt kind communication with our partner - we are at risk of a failed relationship. The more we behave and act in a way that brings up conflict, the greater emphasis we place on threats in our communication as opposed to the rewards. Being on the receiving end of a threat is stressful and can bring up adverse emotions. After a while, it can be frustrating and annoying. This can have disastrous results for long-term relationships, as well as all types of relationships across our lives.
Renowned psychologist, John Gottman of the University of Washington, once predicted the success and failure of couples with an incredible accuracy of 83%. He did this simply by analysing a fifteen-minute conversation between partners. He uses a ‘magic ratio’ of 5 to 1 to predict a happy relationship: for every (1) negative feeling, exchange, or communication between them, there must be 5 positive feelings or interactions to offset them.
When we have been with our partners for a while, we pass the stage known commonly as the honeymoon phase. We stop trying to please one another and we can often slip back into ‘old habits’. It might be you’ve experienced expressions of negativity most of your life, or maybe it’s a learned behaviour from a young age, I can’t say until we talk more together. I can, however, assure you that our mindset is elastic. You can shape yours into adopting an outlook that’s more positive.
If you’re willing to commit time and be disciplined, then we can start rewiring your brain to foster a positive attitude, change the way you interact with your friends and support a stronger, healthier, and happier long-term relationship with your boyfriend.
The simple solution is two-fold and easy, and you’ll feel the results in less than one month:
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Integrate 5 minutes of gratitude practice into your daily routine, and
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Start practicing being thankful with your partner.
Regarding the first part of the solution, there’s a lot of guidance to integrate daily gratitude practice into your life in the toolkit I have provided. Just to reiterate how important this is, Joana, and how it sits at the polar opposite of where your thoughts and interactions are with your boyfriend and friends right now (based on the information you’ve shared with me).
When you have just one grateful thought, this immediately delivers an increase of 10% in feelings of happiness and reduces low and depressive symptoms by 35%. When you do the opposite – you have a negative thought and you deliver it to another person - both of you are registering it as a threat! (Yes, even you!) Your boyfriend is going to do one of these things:
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fight, or take action to eliminate the perceived danger (i.e. you!)
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flee, which involves escaping the danger (maybe temporary now, but it could be permanent)
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freeze, which involves a state of paralysis (and most likely no response at all)
There’s also research showing a fourth elicited response, ‘fawn’, where we appease (cue pleaser mode) to eliminate the threat. In any case, do you want your boyfriend or yourself to be in this mode? Being more thankful can change how we perceive and frame things like your boyfriend doing home chores. This could even be framed in a positive way, for example, it could be a great opportunity to take this responsibility in turns, so each of you has space and time for a hobby.
Let’s move on to part 2 of the solution: practicie being thankful with your partner. Now, the expression of being thankful together is a two-way positive practice in a relationship. It nurtures a stronger bond, greater feelings of intimacy, and overall increased contentment in your relationship. Hundreds of research studies have shown that the practice of showing gratitude to your partner is perceived as an expression of love:
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Recognising each other’s unique qualities
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Showing mutual care and support
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Valuing each other’s role within the relationship
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Feeling a sense of belonging to one another
As a partner, you become more empathetic, understanding, and more appreciative. If you want to make your relationship “bullet-proof”, you could practice gratitude for one another in these ways:
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Gratitude journal about one another, sharing something you’re grateful for about the person every day. Case studies have shown this improves perceived feelings of intimacy, levels of support, and general appreciation in just 14 days.
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Co-write a 5-Minute Gratitude Journal. Either starting or ending your day, you could snuggle up and write a few gratitudes for each other and read them aloud.
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Create a verbal habit where you each share something you’re thankful for with your partner every day. Attach it to an existing daily habit - like dinner, morning coffee, the catch-up conversation coming back from work. Turn off Netflix, put away your phones, and share how the other person makes you feel good.
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Bank your loving gratitude for a rainy or special day. You can choose to share them on a special occasion, their birthday, anniversary, when your partner needs a mood boost, or even just a way to kick off Mondays (bringing light to the Monday blues!)
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Show recognition for who your partner is, just by sharing it with them. Tell your partner you love them because they’re honest, kind, funny, compassionate, calming, nurturing, adventurous, generous, etc. Don’t wait for a specific moment, just express it!
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Say thank you! The easiest way to practice gratitude is to say thank you more.
So there we have it Joana! You can start expressing your thankfulness today, costing you nothing, but with a potentially big happiness reward! Sit down with your partner, tell him how you want to change, and align your 2-part solution. My partner and I share gratitude every day whilst we’re cooking, taking turns to express our thankfulness. It takes just 1-2 minutes and it always makes me feel warm inside. But most importantly, I can see the man I have in front of me and I am so appreciative of that clarity. I also use a gratitude app for my personal journalling, so I’m doubling up every day, and it’s still only 5 minutes in total per day!
With heart and integrity,
Mehibe,
The -C- Coach
Share your story with The -C- Coach!
We want to know the real, human stories behind the statistics and learn about the types of changes that people in our community need to make the most.
As part of the Happiness ROI Programme, we'll be sharing extra tools, guidance, and tips – all backed by brain science – with some of the stories we receive.
Fill out the form and tell us what change(s) you want to make in your life.
Consider recent overall happiness, including your personal and professional life, your relationships, and emotional state.
You've got this.
Thank you again to Joana! Please keep writing in and sharing your stories with me, and together we can continue to learn and grow together.
Next week, we'll unlock our fourth pillar: Boundaries. We'll be tackling possibly some of the toughest challenges yet to support our mental health and wellbeing.
Still questioning the heart centre of 25% more happiness? You don’t think it’s possible to have more confidence, higher self-esteem, and a better relationship with yourself? Cognitive science and research have proven you can have it all, plus these:
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more energy;
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more motivation to exercise;
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a boost in your optimistic outlook;
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better sleep;
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more time for you;
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More time to help others.
Remember, please contact me any time if you need further support or guidance on the Happiness ROI Programme.
With heart and integrity,
Mehibe, The -C- Coach.
Discover your free wellbeing toolkits.
Over ten weeks, The -C- Coach will be supporting you with expert guidance based on five wellbeing pillars. Every two weeks you can discover your new free toolkit with audios, videos, resources, and exercises to help you to explore and integrate sustainable habits into your daily routine for each wellbeing pillar.
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