3031: Build Confidence with a Self Gratitude Journal by Karl Staib of Dig to Fly on Personal Growth

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 3031 Build Confidence with a Self Gratitude Journal by Karl Staib of Dig to Fly dot com And I'm Justin Malik and I'm gonna jump right into today's post as we optimize your life

[00:00:19] Build Confidence with a Self Gratitude Journal by Karl Staib of Dig to Fly dot com My inner bully was driving me crazy My request to be a guest writer for a popular blog was rejected again. That's 10 in the last 10 days

[00:00:37] You aren't good enough. You don't have what it takes to be a great writer. You should just give up My inner bully had been calm for the past week. I forgot about it

[00:00:47] And then it came roaring back knocking me on my butt. I didn't feel like tackling anything that day I knew that I didn't want that option. It just felt like the only viable option. I took almost a year-long break from writing

[00:01:03] I had written almost every day for 20 years The longest break before this was probably a week. I wasn't sure what I was going to do I had grand plans and I wanted to help people, but I didn't know how

[00:01:16] It was at this point that my father got sick He went into the hospital and I felt even more lost I stopped working in my company and went to work for a fortune 100 company

[00:01:29] Right when I started my father started getting fevers and visited the doctor that couldn't figure out what was going on inside of him He slowly deteriorated and they figured out he had MDS a form of blood cancer before it turns to leukemia

[00:01:45] They gave him a round of chemotherapy and he had a bad reaction and almost died He stabilized in the ICU and I flew up to see him He was tied to all kinds of tubes. I began crying walked up to his bed and gave him a hug

[00:02:00] He looked checked out. I was preparing for the worst. I Still wasn't sure how to wrap my mind around the whole situation My father was my rock and now he was dying

[00:02:12] The next day I walked outside with my mom and sat on the bench in front of the hospital We reminisced about how my dad used to come home and yell out hello

[00:02:21] And how he used to swat bees with his bare hands even though he was allergic to them. He's a crazy tough German I remember my brother and my mom went to the cafeteria to get a drink and I was sitting in the hospital room with him

[00:02:35] He was weak and dozing in and out of consciousness. I pulled my phone Opened my notes up and began listing all the things I was grateful for about my father Levels of gratitude. I didn't know what else to do. I wanted an outlet

[00:02:53] I needed a place to put my anxiety These entries turn into little stories and I turned them into a book called bring gratitude It was how I processed my feelings. I Couldn't give up writing, but I needed a reason to write

[00:03:09] I had my reason I could help people who were struggling in their lives and teach them how to build a gratitude practice to help them Build a more resilient mindset as I got deeper into writing in my gratitude journal

[00:03:22] I've noticed a lot of nuances like the different levels of gratitude Here are the four levels of gratitude surrounding sharing self and spiritual It gets exponentially harder as you go deeper into gratitude I'm notoriously tough on myself. I hated looking at myself in the mirror

[00:03:42] I yelled at myself way too much my internal voice was a big bully and I was tired of it Optimistic mindset When I noticed that my attitude improved with a gratitude journal, I began to do research I found out that optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%

[00:04:05] This comes from their ability to bounce back People with an optimistic mindset viewed adversity as just being temporary They thought it would get better The people with a pessimistic mindset see these events as more permanent They thought why try it would just stay the same their beliefs

[00:04:25] dictated their actions So how does one go about building a positive mindset? What starts with understanding that your thoughts create emotions these emotions drive your actions We take action on things that excite us not things that scare us You have to be nice to yourself

[00:04:45] So you have the confidence to tackle a difficult problem If you don't believe in your abilities, then you'll give up before you even start You have to build this foundation It starts with being grateful for who you are and remembering things that you did well

[00:05:01] At the end of the day, use your gratitude journal to look back on what you did well I did a great job creating that report to show my client how they could fix their website

[00:05:11] I did a great job showing my oldest son appreciation when he showed me his artwork he made at school I did a good job letting go of the stress from work so I could relax before going to bed

[00:05:22] You learn to appreciate what you've done well and encourage yourself to do more of it It's a mini celebration at the end of the day The second part is being grateful for who you've become

[00:05:35] I'm grateful that I don't give up easily because it's helped me succeed in my career I'm grateful that I enjoy writing because it's helped me connect with other amazing people I'm grateful that I like to work out because it helps me stay healthy

[00:05:51] This is important because you've grown a lot in your life You have to recognize where you've grown and this will encourage you to keep taking chances because we grow the most when we are challenged if something is easy there isn't much growth there

[00:06:06] You have to celebrate yourself. This is how you become your greatest advocate You just listen to the post titled build confidence with a self gratitude journal by Carl Stabe of digtofly.com Thank you to Carl yet another take on a comment theme for this week

[00:06:28] I don't think I'm imagining it but it seems like these posts I've been talking about how important our thoughts are and I really do think it's probably one of the most important topics we

[00:06:38] talk about on this show if not the most important since our thoughts dictate pretty much everything If you're new here, I promise we talk about a lot more. It just happened that we're starting

[00:06:50] 2024 with a lot of conversations around changing the way we think and I think that's a good thing It wasn't planned but just feels right to me I actually have a ton in common with Carl from his thought process and history of anxiety to the

[00:07:05] experience he had with his dad. My dad's was almost exactly the same but I didn't end up with a gratitude practice like he did. I have tried one in the past but now that I think about it

[00:07:16] I don't recall ever writing gratitude entries about myself and things in my control or my own abilities. It was always external like I'm grateful for the pen I'm writing with or other people and so

[00:07:31] on but I like his twist on it I think it's worth a shot maybe try it out if you too are looking for a different approach and with that have a great rest of your day wishing you one filled

[00:07:41] with gratitude and I'll see you over the weekend where your optimal life awaits