This is who we are when no one is looking. Let’s start with what’s going on inside your head? Only you can listen to your inner voice. No one else can hear it… but if they could what would they say. In fact if you were watching yourself like a fly on the wall, I wonder if you would consider changing your words to others or your behavior towards them.

Research says we speak to ourselves at a rate of 150-300 words per minute and about 70% of this self-talk is negative and self defeating. The worse we feel about ourselves the worse we speak to others. Often the beginning of this journey starts with a thought. Stephen Covey said:

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

If we don’t process our pain we project it on to others and the world around us. Our personal pain turns in to painful thoughts that turn into regrettable actions, that can lead to bad habits creating a character that is not who we want to become. If so much of life starts with our thoughts, then this is perhaps the most important starting place to consider.

So here’s a “Life Hack” for you and a central place to start with building the kind of character you’d like. It’s gratefulness. You can’t be grateful and fearful at the same time. The more we think about being grateful the more positive, affirming and loving we will be towards others and ourselves. Consistent grateful thoughts convert to more positive action that will become more regular actions that create a more predictable character moving us towards our chosen hope filled destiny.

It starts with a grateful thought and gets better from there. In the next blog you’ll read about a life changing gratefulness exercise.

I’m grateful you read this far and hopeful it will be helpful… hmmm… does gratefulness lead to hope… if that’s true then where else could it take us? Perhaps to the very character of who we want to be.