Friday Newsletter: №7
Hey Friends and welcome back to my 7th Friday Newsletter!
Every week I’m sharing: One Insight, One Source and One Question which I found particularly striking or useful, so you can read, reflect and take action.
This one will be dedicated to re-framing gratitude and overcoming hard moments.
Weekly insight
We've all heard that gratitude is important and directly impacts our happiness, but I've always found it challenging to establish a gratitude practice.
The question, “What am I grateful for today?” rarely worked for me. I would usually start by looking around and naming things I could see or listing big things like my career, health, and the people around me.
However, this often felt forced and sometimes even led to self-criticism: “Why can't I feel the appreciation and joy I'm supposed to feel?”
Then, one time when I was sick, all I wanted for a few days was to feel normal again. When I finally did, I clearly remember how grateful I was to feel strong and healthy again .
That morning, when I answered my gratitude prompt, I had a simple answer: “I'm finally feeling myself again”. That's when I realised - gratitude needs a "relative" context. Once you are immediately lacking something, you start appreciating things .
Now, I've revamped my approach to gratitude by re-framing my questions: what I'm grateful for in relation to different times in my life (future, past and present).
Specifically, I ask myself these three questions:
What do I have today that I would have desperately wanted 3-5 years ago?
What do I have today that my 85-year-old self would love to have back?
What do I have today that my current self, if sick or injured, would desperately wish for?
By framing gratitude this way, I feel much more grateful as a result .
Weekly Source
I’m a big tennis fan (as some of you might know) and I highly recommend you to watch this 2 min video by Roger Federer at Dartmouth’s graduation (one of the Ivy League Universities) but not because of my tennis passion. It is a very inspiring and humble talk by one of the greatest tennis players of all time (full 25 min video is here).
Key thought: Perfection is Impossible. Roger played 1526 singes matches in his career and he won almost 80% of those matches. But at the same time he actually won only 54% of overall points. So even a professional tennis player barely wins more than half of the points he plays.
So when you “play your point” in life it has to be the most important thing in the moment. But when it’s behind you - then it’s behind you. This mindset lets you to focus on the next point and the next point after that. With intensity, clarity and focus.
You want to become a master of overcoming hard moments - this is an actual sign of the champion.
Weekly Question
This is a tough one, so I invite you all to reflect and come up with an honest answer:
How long will you put off what you are capable of doing just to continue what you are comfortable doing?
And as follow-up questions here: How do these "capable" and "comfortable" scenarios look like to you? Where do you think each of these paths will lead you in the next 5-10 years?
Let’s stay connected!
Looking forward to be in touch with you all and connect again in the upcoming Friday newsletters! Wish you all a joyful day!
Love this newsletter? Please share with your friends, so they could sign-up here and receive these Friday updates!
If you would like to work with me as a coach, please submit your 5 min request here ere