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The Power of Gratitude

If you have studied personal development for at least five minutes, you have probably heard of the power of gratitude. What does it mean?

The power of gratitude starts with the realization that your thoughts are a powerful force in the universe. People don’t realize that thoughts are things. So, I have to go back and start with his topic before I can relate to you the power of gratitude. Your thoughts trigger an automatic response within your brain. If you have a negative thought, your brain sends chemicals into your body like cortisol. This stress hormone can cause all sorts of damage within your body. When your brain is thinking positive things, it sends out dopamine and serotonin. These chemicals heal your body from the inside out, cause the feeling of relaxation and happiness, and relieves anxiety.

Some studies say that we have over a hundred thousand thoughts a day. The same study says the majority of those thoughts are negative. Can you imagine going to your doctor and asking him or her to give you a shot of stress hormone 90,000 times a day? Nobody in their right mind would do this. And yet we do it every day.

Now that you know how your thoughts can create your biochemistry, how does this affect your world? Quite simply, your thoughts affect your biochemistry, which in turn affects your emotions and then your behavior. Your behavior over a continued period of time will create the world around you. How many times have you had a negative experience, and then you thought about it, and the longer you thought about it, the angrier you became? That attitude snowballed into bad behavior. Afterward, the consequences were so much worse than if you had not behaved in that particular way? Maybe I’m the only one that has had this kind of issue, but I doubt it.

If we could stop that train of negative thinking in its tracks, reverse gears, and start thinking positive things? How would that change the circumstances? How would that change your biochemistry?

Tony Robbins says, “When we have an attitude of gratitude we see life as it is; an unbelievable gift.”

How does all of this relate to gratitude? First and foremost, you must understand that gratitude does not diminish the problematic situation. By choosing to be grateful, you are not saying that the problem isn’t negative. You are simply refusing to allow the negative train to barrel out of control down the tracks until it derails and explodes into a bad situation. You are merely changing your thought process over to something else that can make you feel better, make you behave better, and make the situation turn out okay.

There was a study in a major US Corporation done on the effects of gratitude in the workplace. This company split their crew in half. Half of the people exercised gratitude every morning for 10 minutes before they started working. Some managers had them write a letter of thanks to someone that they appreciated. Other managers had them list ten things they were grateful for at the beginning of the day.

At the end of the study, the corporation took all of the statistics.
-Productivity increased by 37%
-Their sales increased by 37%.
-Their accuracy increased by 19%.
-Their energy increased by 23%
-and they were 40% more likely to be promoted.

How do you think your day would turn out if you started today with 10 minutes of gratitude? This test alone shows a marked increase in positive things. How was your day be if your productivity was increased by 37%? What if your sales increased by 37%? How would that affect your income? What if you had 23% more energy and didn’t have to grab that second cup of coffee at 3 p.m.?

There’s an old saying that says, “In everything give thanks.” Many people tend to believe that this means you have to be grateful for the difficult circumstance. This concept is not true. You are supposed to be thankful despite the adverse circumstance. There’s another saying that says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If you continually think of positive thoughts, you will turn out better than if you’re always thinking negative thoughts.

 A 2018 study by The Greater Good Science Center says a regular habit of gratitude increases happiness, satisfaction with life, and better physical health. It creates better sleep, less fatigue, and less anxiety. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want those things. 

 In my study on gratitude, I found that the word is derived from the Latin word gratia meaning grace. I don’t know about you, but when a situation gets difficult, I could use more grace in the ordeal.

 Tony Robbins once said that you can’t be grateful and fearful at the same time. He said that it’s physically impossible. I did not believe him, so I researched it to find out what he meant by that. It means the part of your brain that is an operation while you’re fearful and afraid is also the same part of the brain that operates when you practice gratitude. You literally shut off one to turn on the other. Your brain cannot physically be happy and sad at the same time. Now, does that mean you can feel happy about one thing and then think about something sad and immediately become sad? Yes, that’s the way it works. You might switch back and forth between the two at lightning speed, but you can’t do both at the same time. That tells me if I want to stop the negative thinking from spiraling out of control, then I need to manually stop that train, reverse gears, and start thinking about gratitude and positive things.

I created a gratitude worksheet for those of my author students taking my author coaching course. Take ten minutes at the beginning of the day and think of ten things that you are truly grateful for. Do this for thirty days and then come back and see how you feel. I guarantee you the next 30 days will be better if you are grateful.

I have attached the PDF document to this post so you can download your very own gratitude journal.

30 Days Of Gratitude #1 Gratitude Worksheet #2


The Amazon links on this page are affiliate links and Synova receives a small commission from your purchase. This commission goes to maintain this website and blog. With your help, Synova will continue to provide free writing tips and tricks on her blog for aspiring writers worldwide.

Get your own Gratitude Journal here:

https://amzn.to/3mssFwb


If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for the Synova Inspires Newsletter and get your copy of her commentary to James Allen’s book “As A Man Thinketh”

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For more information on gratitude check out Tony’s video here:

How to Truly Be Grateful In Any Situation | Tony Robbins

Organizing a Disorganized Writer


“An organized writer is a productive writer” –Synova Cantrell

I travel all over the Ozarks, speaking to various writing groups spanning all genres. I hear one complaint throughout every group. “I can’t get very much accomplished. I don’t have enough time. What am I doing wrong?” The answer lies in your organization. Here are a few tips to make the most of your time.

“Don’t mistake a busy day with productivity. You may have done a lot but was it in the right direction, and something worthwhile?” – Jim Rohn.


I: Organize your Time:

Everyone wants to be their own boss, but this freedom has its setbacks. Housework, yard work, and procrastination can hinder your work ethic if you let them. Schedule time to write and let others know you are ‘at work.’ Create a “writer at work” sign and post it on your door if needed.

Plan what you will do during your writing time the day before. This way, you won’t spend half of your time deciding what you need to do. Make a list of five things that you need to do and list them in order of importance. 

Jim Rohn suggests that every night before you go to bed, you do this planning procedure for your next day, whether it be organizing your housework, organizing your to-do list for your day job, or in my case, organizing my writing time.

 

II: Organize your papers:

Go as paperless as possible. I know it’s hard for those of us who were raised in the 1980s. We love the color-coordinated notebooks, the fluorescent sticky notes, and the highlighter pens, but it’s 2020. Most of those things can be stored on your computer’s hard drive or an online cloud storage service. Save yourself a headache and save a few trees. Try to go as paperless as possible. There are a ton of online organizational tools available. 

Google Docs allows you to upload all of your word documents onto the google cloud and automatically saves your progress. That means no more losing your work when your computer crashes.

The Google Playstore on your android phone has several document scanning apps. These apps will allow you to take a photo of your documents and save them to your choice of locations. Iphones offer their own renditions of scanning apps.

 

III:  Implement a note-taking system or journal:

After going on my rant about being paperless, I suggest that you implement a note-taking system or a journal. Now there are plenty of online tools available for you if you would like to keep your journaling paperless. You can use Google Docs with the talk-to-text option, or you can use Evernote. 

 However, if you are like me, I still have a hardcover notebook that I carry around with me for my journaling exercises. Why do you need a journal? It is simple. What happens when you are in the middle of something important, and you get a million-dollar idea for your book? Do you grab a scrap of paper and try to scribble it down before you forget? Or do you simply rely on your memory?

 We get distracted easily, or at least I do. I lose little scraps of paper, and I hate digging through piles of paper, trying to find the one corner that had my note on it. Instead of doing that, I have a beautiful gold foiled notebook that I carry around with me. I write down all my ideas and all my thoughts, whether they’re good or bad. Then when it’s full, I put it on my bookshelf with my other books. I can always refer back to that notebook to see how far I have progressed in my business and to get good ideas I may have forgotten to implement.

However you decide to accomplish this, I recommend that you start gathering all of your ideas in one place, whether online or in a notebook. I love the beautiful foiled notebooks and journals from Flame Tree Books

 

IV: Keep Track of Your Work Hours:

Keep track of your work hours. Why would you do this? For one, the biggest excuse I hear is, “I don’t have enough time to write.” There are thousands of articles online about time management. I even have a video about time management on YouTube. In reality, time management is impossible. We all have 24 hours in a day. That’s all. We need to manage our to-do list. We can’t manage the time, but we can control how we spend it.

 What happens if you have an hour to work on your writing? If you’re like most, you will sit down at your computer, laptop, or phone and promptly get distracted by social media, research, or a call. By the time you are done, you have written for about 15 minutes, and 45 minutes was wasted.

If you keep track of your work hours, this will let you see patterns in your schedule. Perhaps every Tuesday, there is too much going on, but you could write for an hour uninterrupted on Fridays. Keep track of your hours for a couple of weeks and then go back and see if you notice any patterns. I use Excel spreadsheets for this, but Google has a free option called Google Sheets. 

 

V: Keep A Word Count Log:

 I tell my author coaching clients to keep a word count log. This idea might seem like just one more spreadsheet wasting space on your hard drive, but I assure you it is essential.

You can’t reach a goal if you never set the goal in the first place. So many people I meet want to write a book, but they never set a goal and lay out a plan to accomplish it. I suggest you set a goal of writing your book within 12 months. Do some research and find out how many words your book should have according to your genre.

 Then take that word count total and divide it by 52. This quick math problem will give you the word count total that you need to accomplish every week. Divide that number by the hours you have to spend each week on writing time. Then create your spreadsheet and write down your word count as you go. This process will let you know if you are on target to reach your goals. If you fall behind, perhaps you could carve out more time to write, or you could use your time more wisely.

If you are consistently falling short of your goal, then perhaps you need to extend you’re in plan and finish your book in 18 months. I have designed a free word tracker for you to use if you would prefer to print it out. 

Synova’s word tracker

 

VI: Schedule posts ahead of time:

I currently run both sides of Synova Ink Publishing, the true-crime side, and the author coaching side mostly by myself. I also have become an administrator for the National Crime Syndicate, an elite group of crime writers. 

My weekly schedule includes writing and editing blog posts, coordinating a team of guest bloggers, conducting author coaching calls, recording at least two LIVE videos a week, editing and creating 1-3 YouTube videos a week, and writing my books. If that wasn’t enough, I’m now starting to find sponsors for a possible true-crime television show. 

 I have found in this chaos; if I can schedule my posts ahead of time, it makes my life a lot easier. This concept applies to both blog posts and social media posts. If I schedule out all of my social media posts in advance, it also eliminates the opportunity to get distracted by Facebook.

 

VII: Schedule Research time:

 I know this may sound crazy, but I suggest you schedule your research time. For those who don’t follow the true-crime side of my business, I research cold cases that have been forgotten by traditional media. I have to dig through old case files, newspaper archives and spend hours online searching the internet. This process can take up so much time that I never start writing. Not only have I started to schedule my research time, but I have also brought on a couple of eager associates who love the research part of my business. They will help me research the cases and send me all the information. Then I can write from their research. Why do I do this? Well, I find that research is also an awful lot like social media distractions. It is easy to get swept away and never get to the actual writing process. 

VIII: Outsource What You Can:

 I am learning to do this as we speak. I have built Synova Ink Publishing into the empire it is by myself. Now it is getting big enough that I need help. It is hard to hand over the reins to something I have worked so hard for, but I find it is impossible to maintain and build my business without help. 

I recently brought in a team of guest bloggers to help maintain my true-crime blog as I am working on other things. I also have a couple of researchers who help research the cold cases for my blog. I also have a few social media people helping to share my posts across all of my platforms. Eventually, I will hire a virtual assistant to help with these things and free up my time a little more. To grow, sometimes you have to let go.

Next time you are tempted to say you don’t have enough time to write, think about these things. Is the problem really time, or is it task management?


The Amazon links on this page are affiliate links and Synova receives a small commission from your purchase. This commission goes to maintain this website and blog. With your help, Synova will continue to provide free writing tips and tricks on her blog for aspiring writers worldwide.


If you enjoy this content don’t forget to sign up for Synova’s Simply Biz Newsletter and get your copy of her Free Guide: Overcoming Writer’s Block.

Join Synova’s Newsletter here


If you’d like even more help with your writing business, Synova has recently launched a course for aspiring writers.

Empowering Aspiring Writer’s Course:

This course will focus on helping aspiring writers develop their craft and show them how to build a business from their writing.

For more information check out Synova’s store page HERE


For more free tips about writing check out Synova’s Simply Biz Facebook Group

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