the power of gratitude Archives - Rick Wallace Presents: Visionetics

November 12, 2018November 12, 2018

The Transformative Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles to Harness the Power

Okay, let’s be real straight out of the gate. There are very few instances in which our days go as planned without any unexpected challenges or interruptions. It would definitely be nice if we could just coast through life and everything falls into place. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it, life tends to throw curve balls and present dark spots that blind our vision. There are some people who are naturally able to sense and appreciate those moments when things are going great. Others find it hard to appreciate the bright spots because they are constantly focusing on the darkness in their lives. The real gem rests in those who can find a reason to be grateful regardless of the immediate circumstance.

At The Visionetics Institute, I teach my clients that gratitude is the gateway to abundance in every area of your life. The very notion of gratitude is being grateful for something you have that you could easily not have. So, in essence, gratitude is the recognition of those things that make life better and the appreciation associated with it. The truth is that no matter how bad things are at the current time, there is always something to be grateful for.

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There is a wealth of empirical and pragmatic data that proves that gratitude is literally a physical force that positively impacts the lives of those who possess it on a consistent basis. Over 30 years ago, Martin Seligman introduced a new field of psychology called “Positive Psychology.” Underwriting this new field were studies that examined the impact of certain emotions, such as forgiveness, optimism, happiness, gratitude, compassion, and altruism. At the time that Seligman introduced this idea, it was beyond revolutionary and radical. Until this point, most of the focus on emotion in the world of psychology was aimed at negative emotions.

What Seligman did, either knowingly or unknowingly, was interpolate the principles associated with the universal law of polarity. The law of polarity states that there is an equal and opposite reality to everything. Therefore, if negative emotions wreak havoc on a person’s life, then positive emotions would do the opposite.

In simple, gratitude is an emotion that is directly related to our ability to feel and express thankfulness and appreciation. There are studies that have proven that the expression of gratitude has the capacity to improve mental, relational, and physical health. It also impacts our overall experience of happiness throughout life. Without gratitude, we lose our capacity to experience and enjoy life.

Gratitude is directly associated with a decrease in anxiety, stress, depression, and even headaches. It improves energy, increasing self-esteem, and support are more positive and powerful self-image.

Cultivating Gratitude

Gratitude is a capacity that must be intentionally cultivated. We live in a world in which we are conditioned to focus on the negative. We take on victim mentalities that rest underneath the idea that life is happening to us. The truth is that life is not happening to us, it is responding to us, and when we learn how to engage it, life will happen for us. One method for cultivating gratitude that has worked extremely well for my clients is keeping a gratitude journal where you record experiences and realities for which you are grateful. Obviously, the more you journal, the more you will be able to cultivate gratitude. Keep your gratitude journal close to you at all times, so that you can easily record moments when you reflect on things worthy of your gratitude.

Following are six powerful principles that will help you live a life full of gratitude and the abundance it creates.

Focus on Living Gratitude Even More than Having an Attitude of Gratitude

Many people make the mistake of seeing gratitude as simply being a part of the mentality — an attitude. Gratitude is a state of being and it is lived out each moment. When you have developed and cultivated it, it will be present despite your current mood or attitude. Even the most stable-minded person will have shifts in the mentality; however, when your life rests on a foundation of gratitude, you will be conditioned to search for the light even in the darkest of times.

While there is a mental component involved in creating a state of gratitude, there is so much more. The actualfeeling associated with gratitude initiates in the heart that is a result of shiftingour souls to receive.

2. Shift Away from Conditional Gratitude to Gratitude Beyond Conditions

It is not difficult for most of us to experience gratitude when things are going well and we are happy. It is important to understand that while gratitude has the ability to create happiness is not happiness; therefore, gratitude can be experienced even in moments of unhappiness and displeasure. The goal is to always live in a state of gratitude. In fact, gratitude has the ability to expedite healing and recovery from emotional trauma.

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While the intention to have a mindset of gratitude is important, it means very little if you don’t learn how to live and experience gratitude constantly despite your current condition. Many people become consumed by their current condition because there is nothing inherently present to rescue from focusing on the present darkness. Gratitude will allow you to locate the light in the midst of your darkness and it will also point you to thebrightness of future victories.

3. Resist Disqualifying Your Gratitude During Challenging Times

It is possible to be both, grateful and uncomfortable at the same time. Just because you are in the midst of a challenge does not mean that you should not be grateful. Moments are fleeting and your existence in this life is about more than any momentary discomfort you may experience during your journey to the apex of your journey — your destiny.

Simply understanding the force behind your purpose, should establish a state of gratitude that cannot be shaken. Momentary challenges and disruptions have no power to disqualify your purpose and destiny and you should not disqualify your gratitude because you are going through a difficult point. Your purpose is the insurance policy that guarantees that you are built for the challenge you are facing and that you will emerge victoriously.

Sidenote: Learn to be grateful for the things that are not happening as much as you focus on what is happening.

4. Shift From Only Being Grateful for What’s Present to Also Being Grateful for What is Absent

Think of a negative situation or circumstance that used to exist in your life but no longer exists. Now take the time to experience the feeling of appreciation you have for its absence. Life is not only about what is happening but it is also about what is not happening. As someone who had a catastrophic accident that broke my humerus and dislocated both shoulders, I am grateful to be absent of pain so excruciating that I could not dress myself or even sleep. There is the absence of personal tension from loved ones that I also appreciate. There are so many opportunities to find a reason to be grateful in the absence of things.

5. Learn To Be a Gracious Receiver

There are some of us who find it hard to receive from others. Maybe you come from a background in which gifts and offerings came with stipulations and conditions, or maybe your pride makes it difficult to accept things from others. However, there is a strong force hidden within the ability to be a gracious receiver. When I speaking of graciously accepting something that is being offered to you, I am not speaking so much toward the outward responses, such as complementing or praising the other person. I am speaking of the energy that you are emitting. See the gift as an act of love and shift your energy to a higher frequency that produces a strong vibrational force of love and appreciation.

As much as there is a benefit in giving, there is also a benefit in knowing how to receive.

6. Stop Complaining and Start Cherishing Those Challenging Moments

Complaining is an energy draining behavior that takes place at a very low frequency. It focuses solely on the darkness and pretends that the light does not exist. Complaining is the subtle way of saying, “I’m helpless.” It does not take a lot of effort to muster up gratitude for the abundance of blessing and benevolence that comes your way, but if we are not careful that gratitude will be consumed by habits of complaining, grumbling, and whining about our possessions, situations, and even those whose existence we should be cherishing.

The moment we see something as a burden, we strip the grace and joy out of it. We are able to see even our challenges as blessings, we remove the effort from the experience and we allow it to expand us

Gratitude should be the foundation on which you build the edifice of your life and purpose. It provides the proper lens through which you should view every situation, good or bad. Gratitude sustains composure in difficult moments and helps to sustain energy and passion. Without gratitude, the force of life will consume you. As you begin to experience gratitude in every area of your life, you will find that life is much more enjoyable.

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October 19, 2017

The Principles of Power & Performance

When people come to me for help, they have either experienced success at a high level and they are looking to take their game to a higher level or they are struggling to break free from a life of stagnancy and perpetual failure. I have come to realize that those who are in between success and failure are at the greatest risk of never achieving their full potential. Those who are in between success and failure, while they are not happy with where they are at, are not uncomfortable enough to take the action necessary to change it. They are still willing to wait for fate to deliver what they have the capacity to create.

I guess what I am getting at here is the fact that what you are about to read is for everyone, whether you are a successful business owner, struggling to keep your head above water in any area of life, or just doing okay in life.

What I want to share with you here are principles and practices that are at the core of the successes and achievements of some of the most influential people on the planet. There are several things that I communicate to all my clients, whether they have enrolled in my flagship program Critical Mass, or any of the other programs that I offer. One of the things I share is my simple definition of success because people tend to spend their entire lives attempting to achieve success based on someone else’s definition of what success is.

Defining Success

My definition of success is an adaptation of a definition given years ago by Earl Nightingale. I define success as the measurable progress of the pursuit of a worthy goal. Success is not only realized in the achieving of a particular goal but is experienced along the entire processor continuum leading to that achievement. Yes, I celebrate when I reach a goal for a very brief moment, but I also celebrate the smaller progressions that lead me to the achievement of the primary goal.

I guess what I am attempting to convey here is the fact that you will spend far more time moving toward a goal than you will living in the moment of achieving it. If the only time that you acknowledge and celebrate success is when a milestone is reached, you could literally be robbing yourself of valuable energy and self-encouragement through the acknowledgment and celebration of progress. I really believe that consistent progress is the true source of happiness. When you can see and experience moving toward something worthwhile, the feeling that you experience is quite empowering and elating.

Something else that I want to share about the idea of success is that it is all-encompassing. Success is not only defined by your bank account, but by your relationships, your level of peace and contentment, your ability to help and empower others. You can achieve success in every aspect of your life when you understand the principles of power and performance that I share with you.

Make a Decision & Commit to It

One of the most dangerous places to be in life is sitting between desire and commitment. I tell my clients all the time that you do not get what you want, you get who you are. So, if you are not getting what you want, you must take an introspective examination of yourself and determine what you must change to become the person who is capable of having what you say you want. The key to change, however, is that it requires a commitment that emerges from a decisive moment that demands that you move in a different direction and adopt a new way of thinking. You must decide to raise your standards and expectations for yourself. When you raise your standards, you will automatically lower your tolerance for excuses and mediocre engagement. You will be surprised at how much simply lowering your tolerance for excuses, from yourself and others, will empower you. You get what you tolerate.

One of the most powerful decisions that you can make and commit to is to control the state through which you engage each day of your life. Your state, which encompasses your complete state of existence, including emotions, psychology, posture, perspective, and expectations, determines how you interpret and define every event and situation you encounter. You will respond to every situation based on the state that you are in at that moment.

I choose to live my life in an optimal state or what Tony Robbins refers to as a peak or beautiful state, and the best time to set your state is when you start your day. When you are in an optimal state, you are functioning from a place of gratitude. I have learned that it is absolutely impossible to live in fear when gratitude is present. It is impossible to live in a state of anger when you are grateful. Anxiety, worry and all the other negative influencers that place you in a counterintuitive state cannot exist when you are functioning from a place of gratitude.

Exchange Expectation for Appreciation

While there is nothing inherently wrong with having expectations for yourself and others, when your expectations precede your ability to appreciate what you already have, it opens the floodgate of negative thoughts and everything flows downhill from there. It is when you exchange your expectation for appreciation that the lens through which you view life becomes clearer, your perspective becomes more balanced. It is through the conduit of appreciation that marriages flourish. You see, when you appreciate your spouse, you stop demanding and start encouraging them to be better in certain areas.

Having a heart of gratitude also guards against the development of a victim’s mentality. Gratitude does not allow you to feel sorry for yourself. It is not that gratitude stops the vicissitudes of life from rolling into your paradise, it simply allows you to view the disruption as an event and not make it a part of your constant reality.

Being in an optimal state does not mean that you do not become angry, sad, or frustrated, it simply means that you choose not to remain in those lower states. I have adopted a 60/90 rule for negative state occurrences in my own life. What this means is that when I get knocked off track by some unexpected disruption, I give myself 60 to 90 seconds to return to an optimal state.

Priming or Prepping for Optimal State

So, how do you set and reset your current state? You do it through a process called priming, which can be done in as little as 10 minutes each morning. I often speak about the fact that there are 86,400 seconds in a day and how you invest in those seconds will determine your future. Well, the 10 minutes that you spend priming could be the most important 600 seconds of your day, because it will determine how you engage every other moment.

There is no right way to prime, but I would suggest finding a quiet spot in the morning where you will not be interrupted, but if you are like me and have a family, it may be easier said than done. When you find that spot, put on your headset and play music that you find encouraging, empowering and calming. You might be surprised at how instrumental music can be in setting your emotional tone and overall state. Next time you are riding in your car pay attention to your mood shifts as the music on the radio changes. I tend to make my own playlists that allow me to keep a consistent state. Now, my playlists for the gym is different than my playlist before going to bed, because the aggressiveness I need in the gym will not serve me well when I am attempting to fall asleep at night.

Next, you will need to clear your mind of all negative thoughts. The best way to do this is by embracing a heart of gratitude. No matter where you are and what you are going through, there is a reason to be grateful, and you have to find that every morning before you start entertaining the things you are not happy with. If you don’t, you will be in a constant state of either anxiety, frustration, fear, bitterness, anger, etc. Gratitude frames your perception of reality. For me, it is easy because before I climb out of bed I look over and see God’s greatest gift in my wife.

When you achieve an optimal state at the beginning of your day, you are better equipped to engage any negative situations, but more importantly, you will create more opportunities for positive experiences. Living in an optimal state provides the capacity to take control of your environment instead of allowing your environment to control you. This is the point in which you discover that life is not happening to you, it is responding to you.

Follow Your Passion & Do What You Love

Have you ever noticed that when you are doing something you hate or find boring that time seems to stand still? Conversely, when you are doing something you are passionate about and love, time flies. When you are working in areas that serve your passion, time literally disappears. I experience this truth at its height when spending time with my wife and kids. When my wife and I take a day to ourselves, that day seems to fly by in what seems like seconds, and the moments that we are apart tend to linger. This idea of time is a mental one and it works in correlation with how you perceive what you are doing.

When I first meet a potential client who is working a job that they absolutely hate, I will often tell them that they are slowly committing spiritual suicide. Some might believe my assessment is exaggerated; however, you are actually designed to pursue what you are passionate about. It is where you will achieve the greatest success, the most fulfillment, and find the most contentment. One of the most diminishing forces in life is the act of doing something solely because you believe you have to.
If you have not yet discovered your passion, it is will be immersed in your purpose, which can be uncovered by examining the unique gifts and talents hidden in your design. Your design is indicative of your purpose. When you find that thing you would do for free and you decide to master it and use it to serve others, you will almost certainly be paid handsomely for it. There is nothing wrong with being paid for what you do for others as long as the value of what you give exceeds the value of what you are being paid.

Get Rid of Limiting Beliefs

One of the greatest impediments to success is limiting beliefs — beliefs that form the idea of what can and cannot be done. Even if you gain access to the most successful strategy for what you are attempting to achieve, if you have conflicting beliefs that are not in alignment with what you are trying to do, you will find a way to sabotage your own efforts. In fact, the more limiting the belief, the less likely you will invest the necessary effort to produce the desired result.

This simplest representation of the success formula looks something like this:

POTENTIAL (Including the confidence you have based on your perception of your potential)

ACTION/EFFORT Taken based on Potential (It takes massive effort to achieve massive results)

RESULTS (Your results will be in direct correspondence with your actions and effort)

REINFORCED BELIEF (The results you get will reinforce the initial belief and further impact future efforts)

Basically, if you believe that what you are after is possible, you will invest an unlimited amount of effort and energy into ensuring that you achieve your goal, and the amount of effort you invest will be reflected in your results. When you get the results you are looking for, it will reinforce your belief that you could, resulting in even greater effort in the future, producing greater results. Conversely, no one invests massive effort into something they do not believe will produce the desired result. While most people will at least try so that they can say they did, the effort they invest is minimal and the energy they emit while attempting the task will be low-frequency energy that produces low vibrations — attracting negative results.

Control Your Emotions & Execute Your Presence

Anyone who does not develop the capacity to control their emotions will be capricious in their actions — never achieving any form of consistency in performance. People driven by emotion are tossed about by the circumstances of life — never truly finding their footing. There are many ways to train yourself to control your emotions. The most powerful method of controlling your emotional state is the priming technique I mentioned earlier. I train my clients to use priming as part of their daily rituals or routines. Your life is a reflection of your current rituals — those things you do daily. If you are an avid reader, whatever you read consistently will be reflected in how you live your life. If you have a ritual of eating healthy and working out, it will be reflected in your health and your appearance. If you have a ritual of studying successful people, you will find yourself emulating those people. Priming must become a ritual if you want emotional consistency in your life.

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Other ways that you train your emotions is through breathing, posture, and motion. In fact, both posture and motion have the power to create emotion and immediately change your state. If you do not believe me. Try holding your head up and squaring your shoulders while maintaining a feeling of helplessness. You will either abandon the posture or abandon the sense of helplessness. It is the same thing with motion, get to moving. Go for a run or walk. Jump up and down. Turn on some music and dance. You will find that motion and posture demand an emotional response that is in alignment with the posture and motion. I teach these techniques to my clients and they are amazed at the power of posture and motion to completely turn their day around. In my upcoming book, Critical Mass, I go into detail explaining how to use motion and posture to achieve an optimal state.

Finally, you must execute your presence. What I mean by this is that your state will dictate the type of energy that you emit and the level of vibrations you are able to achieve. The higher the frequency, the higher the vibrations. The higher the vibrations you achieve the greater your power to achieve the phenomenal. When you are in an optimal state you will be able to execute your presence, or make your presence felt without effort. In other words, when you are functioning in an optimal state, you will literally be able to move the universe on your behalf. It all begins with your thinking and your beliefs and it plays out in every facet of your existence until it manifests itself in the third-dimension.

The only limits that you have on your life are the ones that you choose to accept with your mind. You possess the capacity to literally shift your world in your favor, but you must develop the right rituals to produce the results you desire. Remember, change starts the moment you make the decision and commit to raising the expectations you have for yourself. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.