Member-only story
The one mindset I apply to practice gratitude without fail
The secret to staying sane in an absurd world.
Gratitude is one of the most powerful secrets to happiness. Yes, you’ve heard that over and over again. But there’s more to appreciating life than you think. The one mindset that consistently helps me stay sane is “life is happening for me, not to me.”
There’s a psychological term for reinterpreting the meaning of our experiences, especially the negative ones.
It’s called “cognitive reappraisal.”
“Performing a cognitive reappraisal isn’t turning off your negative thoughts — that is almost impossible to do without replacing them with something else. It is also not about turning untrue negative thoughts into untrue positive ones. The goal is to reframe your thoughts constructively, so they are based in reality.” — Elizabeth Bernstein, WSJ
If I think life doesn’t happen to me but for me, I see 90 percent of my experiences as lessons I can take to the next one. I’m using my obstacles to my advantage.
That simple shift changes everything.
So, instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” I flip that thinking to, “How is this happening for me?” It’s a quick mental process I use to create space to pause and use my…
