23 Oct this 60 second hack to start your day will boost both productivity and happiness
via Inc.com by Scott Mautz
It’s hard to get the most out of your day when you spend the first few hours of it (or more) in a funk. Nobody wins–not you, not your spouse or kids, and not your co-workers (just to name a few victims). There are more triggers to bad moods than there are degrees of bad moods, but there is one thing all bad moods have in common.
They’re something you choose to be in.
By no means am I telling you I’m exempt from them, but I can tell you a great hack I’ve developed and used successfully now for quite some time. It helps stop bad moods from ever showing up, which is the best solution, because once they get going, they can be hard to snap out of.
This is an exercise you can do each morning. I started doing it while brewing my morning tea (which is one of the first things I do every day). In the quiet moment while waiting for the water to boil, I ask myself three consecutive questions (pausing between each to consider).
1. What am I thankful for today?
Yup–good ol’ fashioned gratitude. Easy to overlook when you’re feeling sour, but so incredibly important for casting your day in the best light possible. In fact, research published in January 2018 in the Journal of Positive Psychology directly links gratitude with hope and happiness, while classic research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from gratitude expert Robert Emmons links gratitude directly with well-being.
Here’s what happens when you stop to consider what you’re thankful for that day: You’ll find something, or maybe even many things. Bad moods are about what you don’t have, what’s going to happen to you, or what you don’t like. Expressing gratitude forces you out of that mode. It starts a positive upward trajectory and can halt a negative downward spiral in its tracks. All it takes is identifying just one thing you’re thankful for to get things going in the right direction.
Think I’m exaggerating? Try it–especially when you’re right in the middle of feeling pissy…
…could happiness and success be that easy?!?! Try it and see! Check out the full & original article HERE