The Screenplay In Your Head

This week we’ve probably driven home the powerful effect of positive thinking to all of you.  In fact, you may be thinking to yourself “enough already, ok I’ll be positive”. 

But here’s the thing…it’s not enough to just SAY that you’re going to be positive.  Because honestly, A LOT of people simply fake it!

What several studies are starting to show is that the key to a happy, successful and healthy life isn’t about just thinking positively.  Those people who always seem to be so put-together, always seem to have things go right for them, never seem to be faced with adversity are actually practicing GRATITUDE in their daily lives.

I know what you’re thinking. “Well great but for me to have gratitude things have to go right for me!”

This is where those people I mention above just think differently!  It’s not that they are so perfect, that’s not true at all.  But what they have gratitude for in life is ALL of their experiences.  Here are 5 quick tests to check if you are actually experiencing real gratitude:

1. When you don’t know something does it make you uneasy or do you see an opportunity to learn?
2. When you are faced with difficult times do you get stressed about the consequences or see how you will grow once it’s over?
3. When you see your limitations does it discourage you or do you idenfity ways you can improve?
4. When you are faced with a challenge do you feel overwhelmed or embrace the test of your strength and character?
5. When you make a mistake are you embarrassed and try to forget about it or are you teaching yourself a valuable lesson?

Gratitude looks like:

• Understanding things don't happen TO YOU,  they just happen
• Honoring the concept that we all inherently want peace not conflict
• Trusting that perceptions about reality are based on individual experience
• Knowing each person is human and makes mistakes
• Accepting that you don’t know everything and that’s an opportunity to learn
• Seeing that every experience (good or bad) helps you grow
• Realizing that “good” also comes from “bad”

The fact is our experiences in daily life give us very little data with which to base our perception of reality.  So what we do is interpret the data that we receive and create a narrative or “fill-the-gaps”.  

We are all writing screenplays in our heads about a world we see thru just one lense!

So…what is your movie about?  Is it constantly filling the blanks with assumptions about others’ motivations, beliefs or intentions related to their actions or trying to answer why things happen to you?  Sounds like a decent cop-drama movie but do we really want to live life with that kind of anxiety?

Or does your movie fill those blanks with visions for what you can learn, how you can grow, what you are overcoming and how lucky you are for what you have?  That sounds like an inspiring Academy Award Winner to me!

THAT’S the kind of movie you’d want to write and STAR IN!

Have a great weekend and never forget that you can ALWAYS rewrite your story!

Coach Joe