Live Your Best Life!

There is a good chance you have heard that it is important to have a gratitude practice...but why? When I work with clients, if I recommend a strategy for them to try, I am always sure that they understand why it is recommended and how it is designed to impact the wiring of their brain, their automatic thought patterns, and/or their nervous system. Before breaking down ways of having a gratitude practice, I want to be sure to share with you why having a gratitude practice is often a recommendation for individuals who are experiencing low mood, anxiety, stress, worry, and negative thinking patterns. 

Because we cannot possibly pay attention to everything happening around us each day, our brains are conditioned to detect and “filter in” certain things in our surroundings, while filtering other things out that it does not consider as important to pay attention to. The default mode of the unconscious brain is to look for negative things, challenging things, dangerous...

Do you have days where you are feeling energized and on fire, and then have other days where you can’t seem to muster up the energy to get anything done? Or maybe you have days where you are feeling really good about your life in general and other days where all you can see and think about are negative things. This is not an uncommon human experience and it is also not something that is completely outside of your control. 

Your energy and whether you are feeling positive or negative overall is tied to your thoughts and your mindset. Often we think these things are tied to situations happening around us, or to what other people are doing to us, however, this is never the case. Things happening around you can spark thoughts, but it is always your thoughts that create your feelings. This is important to note because this means that if you change what you are thinking, you can change how you are feeling. When you are intentional about this, you can create habits around...

Whether we are aware of them or not, we all have habits. We have hygiene habits, health habits, lifestyle habits, work habits, financial habits, and habits that we bring with us to relationships. Your habits, whether big or small, can work for you. For example, the habit of brushing your teeth likely works for you. You keep your teeth healthy, your mouth feels fresh, and people are not repelled in a way they would if you did not brush your teeth. Another example would be the habit of exercising every day. This habit also likely works for you because it helps you be healthier, and perhaps also helps you look the way you want to look. A final example could be the habit of always hitting your deadlines at work. This is a habit that could work for you because it allows you to be successful in your job as well as have positive work relationships.

That all makes obvious sense, right? Each habit is reinforced by things such as healthy teeth, a fresh feeling mouth, being healthy, and being...

Do you wish you had more joy in your life? Do you keep waiting for outside circumstances or events to bring you more joy and happiness? Do you ever find yourself saying, “I will be happy when…”? Have you ever heard someone say that a person makes them so happy, or that they were so happy that they got a promotion, or that they are so happy they are finally starting a family? 

While it is true that people, external circumstances, and events can trigger us to feel joy, it is ultimately what we think about people, circumstances, and events happening in our lives that create the feelings we experience.

In each of the situations mentioned above, it is what someone is thinking about another person, a promotion, or starting a family that creates the feeling of joy. For example, starting a family is an event or circumstance that happens in someone’s life. One person could feel immense joy because this is something they have been wanting for as long as...

Your mindset and your beliefs about yourself are powerful. They can elevate your confidence, your actions, and the results you get in your life, or they can crush your confidence, limit your actions, and limit the results you get in your life. Have you heard of the “fleas in a jar” story? It is a great example of how what you believe changes how you act, and therefore the results you get in your life. 

Years ago, a scientist conducted an experiment where he placed fleas in a glass jar. Once in the jar, the fleas immediately started jumping and jumped so high that they were able to jump out of the jar and escape. Next, the individual conducting the experiment put a glass lid on the jar so that the fleas could not escape. The fleas continued to jump but now they were hitting the glass lid, jumping again, and hitting the glass over and over without being able to escape as they had before.

What happened next is fascinating. The scientist removed the glass lid...

Do you find it hard to stay motivated? If so, you are not alone, because it is not possible to stay highly motivated at all times. Of course there are people who seem to have a higher level of motivation ongoing, however, it does not mean they actually do. It is likely more about their mindset and their ability to push through and to keep going despite challenges or discomfort. 

As someone who is trained in motivational interviewing and who teaches strategies that help dial up and sustain motivation, I know too well how motivation can come and go. What typically happens is that we get excited about doing something new, we are energized and ready to take action because something is important to us, and then things get hard, uncomfortable, boring, frustrating, or challenging. When this happens to you, your brain will try to tell you all the reasons why you should stop working towards the thing you are trying to achieve and as a result, your motivation drops. 

Part of...

Do you find that you spend a lot of time thinking about all the worst-case scenarios that could happen? Worst-case scenario thinking, or “catastrophizing”, is a thought distortion that negatively impacts many individuals and can involve only considering the worst possible outcomes, blowing things out of proportion, or dismissing any positive outcomes including the best-case scenario. When you spend a lot of time thinking about worst-case scenarios, you also experience the emotions that accompany your thoughts about only negative outcomes occurring. Common emotions associated with worst-case scenario thinking include anxiety, worry, stress, fear, distress, hopelessness, sadness, and anger. 

There is a difference between planning for challenges that are likely to occur, and thinking about things that are very unlikely to happen. When you are using the logical part of your brain and considering if there are any actions you can take to reduce the chance of something...

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines overwhelm as “to cover over completely, submerge”, “to overcome by superior force or numbers”, or “to overpower in thought or feeling”. When we, as humans, experience overwhelm it is usually the third definition of “to overpower in a thought or feeling”. Overwhelm is a feeling you experience when you believe you have too much on your plate and/or when you think life has thrown something at you that is more than you can handle. 

Overwhelm can hit you all at once if something significant happens in your life, or it can build slowly until one day you feel like you don’t know how you can handle everything that you have to do. Overwhelm can result in ruminating thoughts about the circumstance(s) causing the overwhelm, challenging feelings of stress, anxiety, or fear, and/or physical symptoms in the body such as an upset stomach, tightness of the chest, fatigue, or headaches. When...

Do you have days where you don’t feel like doing something, even though you really "should”? If so, you are a normal human being. This is an experience we all have at some point. Some people experience this more than others, and some of us experience this more during certain periods of our lives than others.

Feeling like you don’t want to do something could be related to challenges with emotional or mental health, or it could be that you are feeling overwhelmed and tired. It could also be because there is something more appealing that you want to do. Regardless of the specific reason, it is because in some way the things you are needing or wanting to do feels challenging. Our human brain is wired to keep us comfortable and to have us use the least amount of energy possible throughout the day. If it is not managed, your brain will want you to play small, stay as comfortable as possible, avoid risks, and do the things that bring the most pleasure, while using...

You experience approximately 60,000 thoughts per day. That is a lot, right? There is no way you can give attention to everything that comes your way, or that goes through your brain. Because of this, you can either be intentional about what you are thinking, or you can allow your brain to choose your thoughts for you. What can be helpful to know is that given the choice, your brain will likely choose to focus on the negative things, the hard things, the things that did not go well in the past, and the things that it thinks you should worry about in the future.

Your brain does this to protect you. It thinks that if you focus on the hard things or the negative things that it can protect you from them, or you can save yourself from them. When this happens, you often spend a lot of time and mental energy having thoughts that do not serve you. This is what is happening when you receive nine compliments and one piece of constructive feedback, and all you can think about is the one piece...