Jim Kwik explains how gratitude rewires your brain and shares concrete ways to practice it: tell people directly, write in a journal, or save daily entries in a bowl to reread later. One listener avoided a drastic action after hearing about gratitude's power.
Welcome to today's Kwik Challenge, your Kwik Brain Challenge, and I'm gonna challenge you to be even more grateful than you were yesterday, and that's what we're gonna talk about. Now, the episode I wanna reference is episode number 47, which is How Gratitude Rewires Your Brain. That was a special episode we did on Thanksgiving, and this is a special, a topic that touches me very deeply because on that episode, we actually got a message from somebody that was in a very dark place, really dark if you can imagine it. And there was something— they were planning something pretty drastic. And I got a message saying that they ended up not going through with that because they listened to that episode. And I, I want to encourage you, if you haven't listened to episode 47, or maybe you know somebody who's going through some difficult times, some adversity, because here's the thing, you could be You can be standing or sitting next to somebody who's going through the most insane battle of their life and not know that. So that's why I feel like kindness and gratitude goes a long way. Now, in that episode 47 on how gratitude rewires your brain, I talk about all the benefits. I talk about how people who have an exercise to be more grateful, they sleep better, they have lower blood pressure. And here's, here's the thing, even cognitive, self-esteem, all these incredible benefits that come from being grateful. Now, there's a saying that says, what you appreciate appreciates. What you appreciate in life actually appreciates, meaning it grows. And so as your Kwik Brain Challenge, or quick challenge if you will, I'm going to encourage you to express that gratitude. So imagine this. Imagine you have a thought experiment where you did this every single day, if you're willing. What if the only things in your life tomorrow are the things you express gratitude for today? Let me say that again. What if the only things in your life you had— the people, the opportunities, the resources, the objects, all the things— what if the only things you kept tomorrow are the things you've expressed gratitude for today? Would you live differently? Of course, we all would. And how does it feel to feel grateful? It's amazing, right? Because somebody can have everything and not appreciate it, And it feels like they have nothing. But somebody could have very little resources, but they feel so grateful and appreciative, they like have everything. All right, and so what I want you to do as part of your challenge today is to express your gratitude in one of two ways. You could express it with people around you, and that's wonderful. Talk to your family, talk to your friends, express gratitude for the person that lives or delivers your mail, wherever you are, express gratitude for them. And/or express gratitude in a journal. A lot of people, they like to express gratitude by writing things down. So it's verbally is great, but also writing things down kinesthetically. There's something about putting pen to paper and to be able to see all those things. Some people, what they'll do is they'll write on a little note card one thing they're grateful for that day, and they'll put it into like a fishbowl. And then at the end of like 365 days after a year, they just go and read all those things. And I even just get goosebumps thinking about that. I call them truth bumps, but it's just how do you come alive that way? And so my challenge for you today is you deserve to feel like you have more than you think you have. Like if you want to feel truly wealthy, count all of the things you have in your life that money cannot buy. Count. Just write down in your gratitude journal or notebook all the things you have in your life that you wouldn't, you wouldn't give away for any amount of money, right? And then you could be able to feel what it really feels like to feel, to feel truly wealthy, because you have— we have more than we think we have, even through the challenges. Even I've learned through my challenges of learning, my challenges of public speaking, that sometimes there's a gift in it. And if you start to train yourself to look for it, what we look for, we find, right? You know this, like if you just see a yellow car, you start seeing yellow cars everywhere because it becomes important to you. What if you start asking yourself, what do I feel most grateful for? You'll start seeing that. And where your focus goes, your energy flows, and you start having more of that. What if you started looking for opportunity more? A lot of people are really good at seeing the negative, right? Do you know somebody like this? Maybe somebody too personally? Where they just, they're really good at seeing what's wrong. You could also train yourself and rewire your brain through gratitude practices to see what's right. And what you see, you start seeing more of, right? And that's what we talk about in our reading program, where the information is there. A lot of people will read, but they forget what they need to know because they're not asking those questions and they're not looking for them. So ask yourself the question, what am I grateful for right now? Or if you say nothing, What could I be grateful for right now? So here's your Kwik Brain Challenge. Write 3 things down and post it that you're grateful for today. Either take a picture of your journal or take a picture of something you are grateful for, post it online, and say, this is what I'm grateful for today. And ask your friends, what are you grateful for? Because that's a great question and gift you could give them. And when you're doing that, make sure you hashtag #KwikChallenge, K-W-I-K Challenge, Tag me @JimKwik and @KwikLearning so I see it and my team sees it. And what we'll do is we'll repost some of our favorite on social media, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram. And we'll gift some of our favorite books from past podcast guests. So are you up for the challenge, Kwik Brains? I know you are. This is gonna be a fun one. Write down or post some of your favorite things that you're grateful for right at the moment. Doesn't have to be the biggest things in the world. Because what you appreciate appreciates, and you're going to find that you're going to have more and more to be grateful for because a little by little, a little becomes a lot. I think one of the greatest prayers that we have are the simple words, thank you. Just saying thank you, giving thanks. So I want to thank you for watching this episode, listening to this episode. Thank you for participating in our Kwik Challenge, and I'll see you in our next episode.
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