“Find gratitude first and you will find your happiness.”
– Steve Napolitan

Gratitude is how I start every day. Every. Single. Day. Why? I’ll get to that soon. But when I wake up, I sit on the edge of my bed, and the first thing I do is take a log of the list of things I am grateful for.

• To have a breath of fresh air.
• To have had a restful sleep.
• Having such a special family.

The list goes on. But I make sure that I am truly grateful for and it gets me into the state of gratitude where I feel the abundance I already have in my life. I often also don’t repeat things, except things like my family—but I strain my brain to notice how much there is to be grateful for in my life that I didn’t notice before.

This isn’t new. You may have heard of people who talk about gratitude journals and the like. But I want to take it further as a daily practice. My friend Tommy (an anti-diet doctor) introduced this to me. We’ve been friends for many years. We talk about the 5-minute wallow.

What’s the 5-minute wallow? There might be times of your day where you get emotional or upset. And the rule is, you have 5 minutes to wallow in it. But if you go beyond the 5 minutes, it has started consuming your life with negative energy!

Instead, if something bad happens, take 5 minutes and do the following:

1. Assess what’s going on
2. Take a log of what you can learn from it.
3. Ask yourself regarding this experience, “What you are grateful for?”

What are you grateful for in that moment?

This really does change everything. Here’s how the mechanics work: when you are emotional, just think about it, if you have 10 choices in your logical mind, get super emotional, and notice, your options get less. When you are upset, and you say something, you later reflect, “Why did I say that?” Because when you are super emotional, then you lose choice.

When you are super emotional, then you lose choice.

That’s why we have the 5-minute wallow to process the emotion, calm down, and when you take a log of what you can learn from it, then install gratitude, you are going to expand the choice you have about your situation.

Every adversity has a gift. I am not the only one who says this. Napoleon Hill talks about it and so do many other personal growth experts. When you calm yourself down, when you calm your mind, you are going to find the GIFT faster.

The reason we don’t find it is because we are so flustered, so clouded, that we can’t see the gift. Then we just go on a downward spiral.

So, the trick is: find what you are grateful for. Maybe you are grateful you are alive, taking that breath–get yourself out of the spiral!

When you do, you calm yourself down, and you can see the gift in the eye of the storm. I look forward to hearing your results, and if you have any questions, please do comment on this post! I read every comment and it inspires me to create more valuable content just for you 😊

Bye for now.

Choose Gratitude Create Freedom

Steve Napolitan