Greg Morin shows us the necessity for regulation strategies in building an appreciation for life as well as keeping us on the even sine wave where we remain in the driver’s seat of life.
Transcript:
What’s up, team? Coach here, and today we are talking about appreciation for life and the impact regulation has on that domain. Remember, life is a series of ups and downs, and we have the opportunity to choose how we navigate that. We can lean into that healthy sine wave—the green sine wave—or we can lean into and be relegated to the unhealthy sine wave—the red sine wave. Healthy is supported by the three to five people we have, that we lean into, that we spend the most time with, that hold us accountable, that challenge us, that encourage us, that support us—and those mentors, people in our lives that have achieved the things we want to achieve and won’t tell us how to get there, but they’ll ask us questions to help us find our own way. The other support aspect of that healthy sine wave is those wellness practices—the things that I do in my life to maintain a healthy wellness triangle that ultimately give me the capacity to choose the nature of my life. That’s one way to live.
The other—the unhealthy sine wave—riddled with bad habits and unhealthy influencers that ultimately leave us living life on somebody else’s terms. Regulation helps us choose who and how we want to be. It helps us lean into opportunities to choose to do the things that help us become the best version of ourselves.
So when we think specifically about regulation and how it’s connected to appreciation for life, I want to focus on one thing that I know you understand very well—gratitude. I want to focus on this idea that gratitude is what creates happiness, as opposed to happiness creating gratitude. You think about gratitude, you think about doing some form of gratitude for 21 days, and it starts to change our mindset—take us from a low level of pessimism to a low level of optimism in just 21 days. It helps increase our capacity and our ability to identify the things in our life that we should be grateful for. It helps us understand that you can be grateful for whatever it is—the little things and the big things in life—and it will ultimately impact our overall sense of well-being.
Ninety-nine percent of being well and staying well is in the choices you make. Ninety-nine percent of being well and staying well is completely up to you.
So we think about wellness practices, we think about gratitude, it provides us the opportunity to lean into practices and people in our lives. We know that science shows that 80% of our thoughts are negative on a daily basis, and that 95% of those thoughts will be repeated over and over and over and over again—but 60% of those negative thoughts are never likely to happen. And that’s where gratitude comes in. It gives the opportunity to feed that 20%. If 80% of my thoughts are negative, I can intentionally feed that 20% and start to create a shift in perspective—from negative to positive, a shift from this victim mindset to a warrior mindset.
Our buddy Viktor Frankl—he’s got a tremendous number of quotes, but this one really speaks to the power of regulation as it relates to appreciation for life. He says, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space, our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom.” That space that Frankl talks about is created through regulation. That space is where we get to choose where our focus goes, where our energy goes—positive or negative. It creates a perspective that is rooted in a warrior mindset and leans into the appreciation of both the little things and big things in life.
So I want you to reflect on a couple things. What wellness practices are you utilizing to help you cultivate a deeper appreciation for life? What people in your life help you lean into and cultivate a deeper appreciation for life? Who supports you? Who holds you accountable—to understand that it’s oftentimes the little things that are the most meaningful things, the little moments that are the most meaningful moments?
If you struggle to answer these questions, maybe you have to look at the fact—and question—what bad habits or unhealthy influencers are preventing you from experiencing appreciation for life.
And that leaves you with one final question: If you’re not experiencing and leaning into and cultivating an appreciation for life, what changes do you need to make so that you can?
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