I’m here to interrupt your day. Hello, Pete Machalek from Sage Presence here. I want to give you a little exercise to do out of the blue for no reason. I want you to take a moment and think about whatever you were thinking about a moment ago before I interrupted you, and I’d like you to ask yourself, “What can I appreciate about that right now?”
Now, whatever it was your attention was on, it might have been something you were enjoying; it might have been something you were indifferent to; it might have been something that you were working on that was causing you stress, some negative experience might have been associated with that. It doesn’t matter at all. I want you to literally pause your thinking right now, maybe even pause this video right now, and ask yourself, “What can I appreciate about that thing that I was just thinking about?” And don’t stop until you come up with an answer.
Now, how do you know that you came up with an answer? You’re going to feel appreciation as a product of asking yourself this question. It’s not an intellectual question; it’s an emotional question. Appreciation really is its own benefit. It lifts you up; it makes you feel good; it makes you feel better. If a moment ago, you were feeling problematic, appreciation is a net sum. You are going up, no matter where you were before. Even if you were already feeling great, taking a moment to feel that and to appreciate the greatness lifts you up.
Now, another reason why I asked you to do this is it’s a great, healthy, positive, powerful exercise to get into on a regular basis. Ask yourself what you can appreciate and to bump yourself up with that feeling whenever it occurs to you, and do it when things are neutral. Do it when things are positive so that you can remember to do it when things are negative, when you particularly want and need it.
When you’re stressed out, when you’re nervous around a presentation, when you are trying to figure out how to fix a problem, when you are working with your team, and your team is at loggerheads, if you do this, and you literally can’t come up with an answer, I’m going to ask you to give yourself some more time.
I’m confident you can get there, and the reason I’m confident you can get there is there was a book written by a guy named Victor Frankle, who was in a concentration camp during World War II, and he landed on this concept when he was in a concentration camp. He found something that he could appreciate amidst all of that death and dying and torture and agony. If he could find something to appreciate amidst that, you can find something to appreciate amidst whatever you’re experiencing. This is a human truth that we all have access to. It’s just some of us have stronger muscles, and the way we get our muscles strong is by practicing this, by exercising the muscle.
The more you do this, and the more frequently you do it, the stronger your muscles will get. If you can get into the habit of appreciating the moments that are positive and neutral, then you can remember to do it when things are negative.
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