High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 387: The Power of Gratitude

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”—Oprah Winfrey  Practicing gratitude has a lasting impact when done regularly. One study suggested just 2 weeks of a gratitude practice can have a lasting impact for 6 months. Gratitude is also connected to better health as well as more optimism and resilience. You can start a daily gratitude practice at the beginning of your day or end of your day by writing down 3 things you are grateful for each day. You can also shift your focus at any time to what is good and what you are gratitude for in any situation. Choose to take the perspective of a resilient, optimistic person and draw the good from a difficulty.    This Week’s Power Phrase: “I choose to intentionally practice gratitude daily. I focus on what I am grateful for to stay fueled and excited for my life.” 

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Campoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We check in with Cyndra Campoff. And Cyndra, we are talking about the power of gratitude today. I think this is always a great topic. I agree. And we're going to start with a quote by Oprah Winfrey. She said, be thankful for what you have and you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never ever have enough. What inspired the topic today for us? So a few months ago, I interviewed

Dr. Nicole Gabana on my podcast. She's the director of sports psychology at the University of Massachusetts. And she does research actually on the power of gratitude. And when we were talking about this research, she said, you know, under stress and anxiety and pressure, our brain wants to narrow in and focus on what's negative because it's kind of the way, a brain's way of protecting us. But when we have this gratitude practice every day, it allows us to balance out this negative and turn our attention to really what's good in our life. Why is the topic important today? Well, Lisa, I was reading a study that actually showed that gratitude can have a really large impact on our life. For example, the study I was reading said study that actually showed that gratitude can have a really large impact on our life.

For example, the study I was reading said that when we acknowledge or write down three things every night for two weeks, it had a lasting impact for six months. Oh, wow. So just by doing something for two weeks, it can really have a big impact. And we know actually from other research that gratitude is connected to better health, more optimism, more resilience. And people who practice gratitude are seen as more trustworthy and helpful and outgoing. So there's some reasons why we should practice gratitude every day. So how would you tell us to start having a gratitude practice? Well, I think you could actually write down three things in the morning.

It doesn't have to take very long, or maybe you do it before you go to bed. So that's one way to actually have a gratitude practice. Another way is just to keep it in mind throughout your day. You can practice gratitude just by shifting your focus. And what I mean by that is your attention is like a spotlight. It's always on something when you're awake, and you can shift your attention to what's going great, not just what's going on, you know, that that's wrong. Because your brain's naturally going to want to go to what's wrong instead of what's right. So, Cinder, with everything going on in the world right now, why is gratitude so important for us? I think it can help us cope with what's happening,

you know, and reduce our stress and our mind. It tends to go to the future, it tends to go to the worst case scenario. And gratitude is a great anecdote to feeling fear and anxiety and worry and envy, because you can't feel both of those at the same time. So you can't feel fear and gratitude at the same time. So I think that's why it's really important for us right now to just have a gratitude practice. So what do you do with events that are difficult for people? Because it's hard to feel gratitude, say, if you've lost a job or you have an illness. For sure. And I think it's important to feel the feelings that you're feeling, right? It's okay to be frustrated and sad when things don't go as planned

or when you experience something difficult. But we can also take a perspective of an optimistic and resilient person by really drawing the good that is coming from the difficult experience and we can shift our attention to the gifts in the situation. Like what did we learn? What's the opportunity that came from the difficulty? How did we receive support from others?

And I think it's good to feel those feelings because they give us information about what's important to us, but know that we can shift our perspective and see the good too. So put a little bow on it. Summarize it for us today. Okay. I would say that regularly practicing gratitude is really powerful and has a lasting impact when we do it regularly. And gratitude is connected to better health, more optimism,

and more resilience. So we can have a gratitude practice when we wake up in the morning or before we go to bed at night where we write down three things that we're grateful for, or we can shift our focus to the good at any time and focus on what we're grateful for to take this perspective of a resilient, optimistic person. Do you have a power phrase to leave us with? I do. I choose intentionally practicing gratitude every day. I focus on what I'm grateful for to stay fueled and excited for my life. The power of gratitude, Dr. Cinder Kampoff. How do we connect with you? You can head over to drcindra.com and you can find out about my book, Beyond Grit, or my speaking and training that I do even virtually, or my coaching.

You can find it all there at drcindra.com. Well, Cinder, I'm certainly grateful for you for sharing all of your knowledge with us. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Lisa. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump.

Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Cindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D R C I N D R a.com. See you next week.