Gratitude Ahead of Time

Hello and welcome to Episode Number Seven of The Strategy Corner, where our goal is to get you to take action. I’m your host, Michelle Zink, the owner of Intentional Solutions Corp. Today’s strategy is gratitude ahead of time. What does that mean? Well, I was first introduced to this concept by Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School on her episode number 108 of her podcast. Now, I’ve been talking about Brooke in past episodes, so a lot of things that I do bring up are from her because I’ve been listening to her for over the last several years. And to me, this concept has helped me to create what I’ve been dreaming of in my life and business. I utilize this strategy to keep me focused on what I want and need to accomplish in my business.

For example, I’ve utilized this strategy during the build of my website, blog, and podcast. I’ve never done these things before, but to keep motivated and on point, I would frequently say how grateful I am for an amazing website I created, how grateful I am for finally completing my podcast training course. Now, if you listen to that, you’re probably thinking, “What again is this gratitude ahead of time?” So the idea is that we need to create things in our mind before they actually come to fruition. So this gratitude ahead of time helps you visualize and start believing it is true that you’re able to create whatever you think about.

So for example, this gratitude ahead of time. One thing that I’m trying to work on right now is figuring out what are things I like to do and how I can have more fun. I know, this sounds totally crazy, but the last five years, I’ve been really focused on figuring out my business, and being in development, and really thinking about myself and what I want to do. And now I’m in a position where I really want to focus on being more fun and finding more things that I enjoy doing that isn’t work because I’m talking to the choir here, or I’m preaching to the choir. I know people out there are business owners and executives, and we all get so busy, and we can easily just fall back on work. Right? When we have maybe an opening in our schedule or we have an opportunity to take a Saturday or a Sunday off, we can easily fall into, what do we need to do for work? And I’m really trying to play with this idea of how can I actually schedule these things ahead of time, and have time available, and do X?

And my problem is finding out what X is. Again, I have things that I enjoy doing. I have a daughter, I have a husband, we do certain things, but it’s like, how do I take this to the next level and really start doing things that I haven’t done before? I live in Orlando, Florida, and there’s plenty of things to do in Orlando, but to be honest, I get stuck in a rut and I do the same things all the time. So it’s really taking this strategy of gratitude ahead of time so then I can relax into knowing what these things that I want to do are, because right now, I’m pressuring myself. I keep on telling myself, “You must know what fun things you want to do.” Or, “You must know what are some cool things you could do by yourself in order to get your creativity going.” Or, “You must know.” But in actuality, if you don’t practice it, that muscle gets broken, and you need to start practicing it again.

So one of my real life examples is today I said to myself, “I’m so grateful that I took the time and figured out the things I love to do. I’m so grateful that I now have a list of activities that I like to do, not only with myself, but with my daughter and my husband. I’m so grateful that I took the time to slow down and really figure out what I want to do and how I want to take my life to the next level when it comes to fun.” Now, in last week’s podcast, the strategy that I talked about was slowing down to speed up, which is very counterintuitive, and being grateful before something has even come to life can seem wrong and counterintuitive as well. But again, to get things done, we need to make sure our brain believes, “This is doable.” That we can accomplish the goals and tasks that we have set up for ourselves because doubt will always come into play, but having the strategy in your arsenal will help you keep moving forward.

So what I’ve learned and how it’s helped me. I’ve learned with myself that I utilize this strategy on things that are difficult and I am having a hard time believing I can achieve. So for example, when it comes to taking space and time to do things that are fun and to schedule those things ahead of time. In the real world, that might sound not so difficult, but in my world, when again, I’ve been really focusing on my business and growing and developing, it is difficult to then kind of almost shift it down where you’re now focusing more on the fun. Of course I’m still working, but I really realize that the more fun I can introduce into my life, the more creative I can become, and the better ideas I get. So even though this doesn’t maybe sound difficult for someone else, it’s very difficult for me. So in these situations, I need some extra talking to, some extra motivation to move me through the difficult task to get to the end goal.

It’s also helped me to believe in myself and, thus, accomplish the hard things I’ve set out to do in my personal and professional life. So I’m giving you a real life example right now of creating these fun things. But like I’ve said, I’ve utilized this in my life to create everything that I have right now. I’ve created my own business, I went ahead and was grateful ahead of time for creating that business. I have clients, I went ahead and I was grateful ahead of time for the amazing clients that I work with. I created a website, I was grateful in the beginning that I would find the best person to work for, or excuse me, work with on my website. I created a podcast, I was grateful ahead of time that my podcast was a success.

Now, these are things that I’ve done ahead of time. So now it’s your turn. Your call to action for this week. What is something you have a hard time believing that you can get done, accomplish, or put into the world? What is something personally or professionally that you’ve wanted to do but you just don’t believe you can do it, so thus, you haven’t moved that forward? Now, think about the angle you want to achieve. What do you really want to be the outcome for this goal? And write that down now, in front of that outcome, you need to write down, “I am so grateful for…”, or, “I am so grateful I have…”, or, “I am so grateful X worked out and this has happened.” So we just want to go ahead and take what you actually want to accomplish and put, “I am so grateful that this happened.” So again, gratitude ahead of time.

And then we practice saying this ‘gratitude ahead of time’ daily and see how it changes your mindset and energy around the one thing you want to accomplish, because again, the goal is to start believing ahead of time that you can do this, start visualizing, and through these words, you start visualizing that you’ve actually accomplished it. So I’m going to go over that one more time for your calls to action. Number one. What is something you have a hard time believing you can get done, accomplish, or put into the world? Number two. Think about the end goal you want to achieve. What do you really want to be the outcome for this goal? And then write that down. Number three. Now, in front of the outcome, you need to write, “I am so grateful for…”. Make it sound appropriate for the thing that you want to achieve or that you have achieved. Number four. Practice saying this ‘gratitude ahead of time’ daily and see how it changes your mindset and your energy around the one thing you want to accomplish.

For me, I’ve noticed that when I start saying these gratitudes daily, I really notice how my brain shifts and it makes it possible. Because that’s the thing, right? We need to make the things that we want to do possible. Once we make it possible, once we start thinking we can do it, then all the ideas and the brainstorming, that all starts bubbling up and we can actually visualize and actually put into place a plan to get that thing done. So when we gratitude ahead of time, and when I’ve gratituded ahead of time, it’s allowed my brain to think about that this thing is actually possible, and then in that space, I’m able to create a solution on how to get there. And remember to have fun with this.

Just like I’m having fun with it trying to have gratitude ahead of time for the amazing activities or fun things that I’ve learned that I now like to do, you can have fun with it too and not only focus on your business and what you’d like to accomplish in work, but also think about life. Maybe it’s, “I’m so grateful that I have found amazing places to take my husband or wife for date night.” Or, “I’m so grateful I found the amazing vacation opportunity to take my family.” Just have fun with it. Don’t take it so seriously. See how it feels. And then, if you can please, go to iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and subscribe to The Strategy Corner, and also go to my website, IntentionalSolutionsCorp.com and sign up to get my weekly blog post, which also has a link to the latest podcast.

Until next time, remember, through action and growth, progression happens. Let’s take action together. Thank you so much again for listening in today. I look forward to talking with you next week.