Tag: inspirtation

Categories
Future Habits Future Wellbeing

8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day

By Adam Smith

In today’s article, 8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day. I will show you effective ways to help build your mental strength through gratitude. By the end of this article I hope you find that motivation to develop your mindset with gratitude.

Gratitude Is A Way Of Life

“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.” Gerald Good

After 30 days of practising gratitude daily. I reviewed to find 8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day.

It’s amazing how giving thanks helped in such an effective way.

With the busyness of life, it can be hard to find time for anything for yourself. Just try being a father to two children or a demanding work environment where people need your constant attention. It can be challenging to say the least.

What has had a huge effect on my life is finding time to work on myself. Being selfish in a positive way allows me to improve. In turn, it has allowed me to give more to everyone around me with my energy and my focus has been transformed.

Practising gratitude daily. I am a more peaceful person. A happier person. A more focused person. A more present person. A better father and husband. Overall simply just a better person. 

As simple it is to practice gratitude the results you get are tenfold.

This technique should be in every school, workplace, sports club. It’s no wonder people from all walks of life who have become super successful in their chosen field have it as part of their daily routine. 

It’s because it works.

Now I want this for you, so I have compiled 8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day.

8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day

8 Simple Ways To Help Boost Your Gratitude Every Day with a journal

1. Apply gratitude blitz to everyday life 

Throughout your daily life, it can be challenging but also really busy and having time to sit down alone to write a gratitude list might be difficult. A great way that can help you overcome this is by applying quick-firing gratitude to everything around you that you can see through your eyes and in your mind. I call it the gratitude blitz and it can be anything from the air your currently breathing or a smell of the plants around you. This helped me regain my positivity in a negative setting and put me back in control of my mind to regain balance.

2. Have a gratitude journal

When alone without kids, spouses or your mobile phone unless for a gratitude app. You can now unwind your thoughts into your gratitude journal. This helped me to think in-depth about what I’m thankful for and have time to imagine and feel that joy from being thankful for your day.

3. Don’t be too hard on yourself 

It’s also ok if you forget to do it for one day or when you’re in a negative situation you forget to use the strategy to regain your happiness. Just be conscious that it’s happened and have plans to overcome it. I started putting alarm reminders when I should do it throughout my day which held me accountable to do it or sticky notes in places where you know you will be reminded.

Remember we are forming a new habit and when learning mistakes are always going to happen so learn to enjoy the process.

4. When in doubt get your sand timer out

To be able to perform a quick gratitude burst. Having something to focus on is essential to keep you on track. You can use any form of stopwatch but I prefer a sand timer that I take with me everywhere. I know when it comes out it’s gratitude time and it allows me to focus and calm my thoughts.

5. Instead of finding negatives, find positives

When people make you angry, frustrated or dam right annoyed before you lash out the inner chimp (Ego). Say something positive instead. It will quickly defuse any negative emotion harbouring inside you and the response you will receive back will be more agreeable. By disarming any situation with positive words will allow you to stay calm and centred.

6. Make sure you breathe

Of course, being grateful in a certain situation can be difficult. So when you are in any situation where you feel your blood rising. Just breathe! This will increase your oxygen back to your brain allowing you to return to your normal state, then return to being thankful.

7. Schedule slots upon awakening or before bed

Having a fixed time slot is essential to sticking to your daily practice of gratitude. So in the morning where I’m busier, I perform quick gratitude from my surroundings and then at night with more time, I journal my thoughts then. This has helped me form the habit as part of the day.

8. Freshen up your thanks so it doesn’t get too boring 

What really stops someone from continuing the practice of gratitude and even myself in the past is saying the same things over and over again. This can become boring and something that’s easier to forget about. That’s why it’s important to freshen up your thankfulness and make it more specific to your day rather than general stuff.

Last Word With The Future Mindset

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

Practising gratitude for me is still a work in progress. Sometimes I have days that I forget or my ego gets the better of me.

95% of the time I definitely can see the benefits of this practice and I will never look back again. The overall health benefits it can have on your mind allows me to think more clearly and keeps me living in the moment.

Start slowly with an evening journal or voice notes and start being grateful for your life today.

I hope this helps you with your mindfulness journey.

FUTURE MINDSET

At Future Mindset, we are here to push the boundaries of our thoughts and actions. By chasing discomfort in our lives, it can lead us to unlock things inside us we never knew was there. Let’s change our mindset to change our future.

For all of our latest blog posts on developing your mindset, make sure you sign up to our weekly newsletter to stay informed. Thank you so much for your support and would love to discuss any comments on this post and if you have any suggestions on future posts I’m more than happy to research and deliver that for you.

Chase discomfort and have a great day wherever you are!

Categories
Future Parenting

The 8 Benefits Of Bedtime Reading

A child reading a book at bedtime

After seeing the major improvement in my sons reading i have put together The 8 Benefits Of Bedtime Reading. It has really helped him in many ways and has developed his mindset in the process.

When it comes to bedtime my son demands a bedtime story. He loves it and all the crazy stories that unlock his imagination. Bedtime stories were never a thing growing up, it was more brush your teeth then bed. But as a child growing up in the 90’s with the lack of technology compared to today. Imagination was all I had sometimes.

Looking back on the worlds I used to create was of such enjoyment. As a parent I decided reading to my son was important not only for unlocking new worlds in his life but also through researching the psychological benefits he can get from it. The important part of bedtime reading is that this will be the last thing they hear before they enter their dreams. So I have outlined 8 benefits of bedtime reading has had on my son.

1. Makes Them Want To Read

Since we have read a book to our son at bedtime. Once the book is finished he automatically will read the same book for himself. Children want to be a mini version of you. So when you read to them and the enjoyment they get from this experience. Of course they want that for themselves. Now he’s an avid reader of David Walliams books. He loves Gangsta Granny.

2. Improves Their Reading Skills

It’s amazing the progress a child can make in such a short space of time. We have noticed a sharp improvement when we read more to him and he reads back to us. His vocabulary and the expression of words has improved immensely. Now his understanding of the world he lives in is far greater.

3. Unlocks Their Imagination

A great benefit of bedtime reading to children is the crazy adventures you can go on. The books they read unlocks their imagination to worlds they have never thought possible. The best thing is, it allows them to think anything is possible. Therefore, helps them develop their imagination which we hear and see him do daily. He has writing his own story’s about his sister called The Claw. It’s very funny and has been helped by the books we read at night.

4. 1-1 Bonding

What’s brilliant about bedtime reading is the bonding you get from it. We all have busy lives to lead and giving time to your children can be a balancing act. When they know that bedtime reading is for you and them. It gives them great comfort in that. When we get older these are memories we cherish with our parents. The times we spent together.

5. Teach Valuable Lessons Before Bed

Dr Seuss once wrote: “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” For instance, we read as small child The Very Hungry Caterpillar which taught the story about the benefits of eating well while shedding light on the stages of a butterflies metamorphic life. Dr Seuss’ Lorax warns of the dangers of pollution and industrialisation in a world where the beautiful Truffala trees are all being cut down to make way for more things. “Progress” vs. the environment’s natural beauty continues to be a challenge, making this story eternally relevant. The story ends with hope and the realisation that “Unless someone like you…cares a whole awful lot…nothing is going to get better…It’s not.”

6. Makes For Good Dreams

A true benefit of bedtime stories is that your child will go to bed peace of mind. With the imagination on fire, they will take this to their dreams and intern lead to comforting and spectacular dreams. Well, that’s what we hear from our son anyway. It’s important to have good experience before bed as when we go sleep this is an important part of recalling what we have learnt the previous day to apply the next. When you were young you might have sneaked to watch a scary film. I had the fortunate and unfortunate joy of watching Chuckie. Now it’s laughable as to how not scary it is but in the early 90s as a small child the nightmare I had from watching it was scary, to say the least. That’s why it’s important to have a positive experience before bed.

7. Brain Development

By reading it helps build cognitive function within your child’s mind. A study showed that greater home reading exposure was strongly associated with activation of specific brain areas supporting semantic processing (the extraction of meaning from language). These areas are critical for oral language and later for reading. Brain areas supporting mental imagery showed particularly strong activation, suggesting that visualisation plays a key role in narrative comprehension and reading readiness, allowing children to “see” the story. As Dr Hutton said “This becomes increasingly important as children advance from books with pictures to books without them, where they must imagine what is going on in the text.” This study amongst others show the importance of reading and there is no better place to start than bedtime reading to develop your child’s brain.

8. Inspires Creation

What’s been amazing from all these stories we have read to him, is that it has inspired the creation of his storybook. Reading is a great form for unlocking the creative powers of your brain. Elon Musk the inventor of PayPal, Tesla and now Space x is a multi-billionaire who read hours upon hours of science fictions books that led to further reading of a plethora of other genres. This guided him and unlocked creativity in his brain that led to his invention. This shows the power of reading from a young age that allows further reading that inspires creation.

To conclude I hope The 8 Benefits Of Bedtime Reading has inspired you to get your old books out or visit your local charity shop to gather as many books as you can. Unlocking your child’s potential stems from bedtime reading. Why do all successful people have massive libraries in their homes? It’s because reading is important.

FUTURE MINDSET

At Future Mindset we are here to push the boundaries of our thoughts and actions. By chasing discomfort in our lives, it can lead us to unlock things inside us we never knew was there. Lets change our mindset to change our future.

Sign up to our weekly newsletter to be informed of all the latest blog posts whenever it pops up. Thank you so much for your support and would love to discuss any comments on this post and if you have any suggestions I’m more than happy to research and deliver that for you.

Chase discomfort and have a great day wherever you are!