Practice gratitude. You've been told it a million times and you're probably starting to get sick of it, and fair enough, especially compared to some of the more concrete advice on shows like this one, gratitude can perhaps feel a bit airy fairy, But the science tells us another story. Practicing gratitude is one of the most effective ways to consistently improve your mood and well being. But how do you
actually do it? If you're anything like me, you've got a neglected notebook stuffed in a drawer somewhere, languishing away with five or six days worth of entries from a gratitude journal, and not much really to show for the effort. Well, maybe it's time to simplify. Nod als, no systems, just a little reframe. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy invent Him. And this is how I work a show
about how to help you do your best work. Welcome to your favorite tips across ten bite size episodes. I'll be sharing tips from some of the world's best thinkers that you, the listeners, have found the most useful. We're covering everything from creating better to do lists, to setting more effective boundaries around your time, and you'll be hearing from people like best selling author Sally Hepworth, Corona Cast host and journalist Norman Swan, and Google's executive productivity advisor
Laura May Martin. Today's favorite tip comes from Michael, and he writes, Turia Pitts way of reframing things has helped me immensely mood wise. I concur Michael, so here is Turia talking about how a simple change in ourselves talk can turbo charge motivation and gratitude.
I learned this trick after I had my first son, Hukkabye, and it was because I was always telling myself that I had to do things. So I'd say, Oh, Huckebye's crying, I have to go pick him up. I'm sounding like a really bad mum. I promise, I promise. I'm not ah. I'd say, oh, I have to go clean his room, or I have to prepare his food, I have to
wash his clothes. And when you tell yourself that you have to do things, it's really easy for you to resent them and for them to feel like it's an obligation and something that you don't actually want to do. So then I started saying, I get to I get to pick up Hakkabye, I get to play with Huckabye, and I get to be around and I get to watch him as he grows up. And for me just changing my language subtly, it reminded me that it was an opportunity, it was a choice, and it was something
that I got to be really grateful for. So there it's like a super easy way for us to change how we feel about and experience. And I remember at the start of it that we were talking about when you know, when we said yes to a speaking gig, and then we were really dreading it. And often I get really nervous before I speech because I think I get stuck, really stuck in my head, and I work
myself up into such a state. I think things like I'm going to make an idiot of myself, or maybe I won't articulate what I mean really clearly, or maybe I'm going to make a goose of myself, and I have to really stop and remind myself that it's not that I have to do a speech, but that I get to do a speech, Like it's a pretty awesome opportunity that, you know, a room full of people potentially want to listen to me and want to hear what I have to say. I don't have to do an interview.
I get to do an interview again, Like, what an awesome opportunity that people all around the world want to
listen to me and learn from me. And so I guess for me, that's probably been one of the biggest thing I've learned in maybe the past three years, is just changing that my language from I have to do I get to I think that's a really potent reminder for a lot of us, especially when we're talking about things like going to work, making dinner, things that potentially might not light us up and might not necessarily inspire us, to remind ourselves that it is a choice and it
is an opportunity that we get.
Yeah, I really like it, And it's almost like a form of gratitude because where I've been applying that is that some mornings I just don't feel like exercising, but
I'm very conscientious, so I do. So I just force myself to do it, and I know that I'll feel better at the other end, and I'm getting stronger and all that sort of stuff, and I started reframing my own self talk around exercise and rather than saying, Okay, I have to do this five mornings a week, it's like I get to exercise, and then where it really landed for me is I then injured myself. So I've
been fighting this shoulder injury for about two weeks. I feel like my physio is my home away from home at the moment, although I'm literally kind of just back to one hundred percent at the gym. But yeah, now it's like I get to exercise and it's finally really landed for me. So I personally love that strategy. I find it very helpful, and then you appreciate it even more when things do go wrong and you don't get
to do the thing that you had to do. I still come back to this tip at least once a month, if not more often, when I'm doing something it feels like a chore or that I'm not feeling grateful for changing my mindset and self talk always helps me reframe the activity and feel much more excited about doing it. As the listener of how I work, you've hopefully picked up a few tips on this show to help you work better, but do you want more? And maybe in a book form, because let's face it, books are the
most awesome thing on the planet. Well, now you can. In my new book, time Wise, I uncover a wealth of proven strategies that anyone can use to improve their productivity, work, and lifestyle. Time Wise brings together all of the gems that I've learned from conversations with the world's greatest thinkers, including Adam Grant, Dan Pink, Mia Friedman, and Turia Pitt and many many others. Time Wise is launching on July five, but you can preorder it now from Amantha dot com.
And if you pre order time Wise, I have a couple of bonuses view First, you'll receive an ebook that details my top twenty favorite apps and software for being time wise with email, calendar, passwords, reading, cooking ideas and more. You will also get a complementary spot in a webinar that I'm running on June twenty nine, where I will be sharing the tactics from time Wise that I use most often, and also some bonus ones that are not in the book that I use and love. Hop onto
Amantha dot com to pre order now. How I Work is produced by in Benti and with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you to Matt Nimmer, who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.