Think Big, Use Gratitude to Change Your Attitude, and Carry Your Dreams With You

Nir’s Note: This guest post comes from Brendan Kane who has built technology for MTV, Paramount, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and the NHL. In this article, Brendan describes how he reprogramed the way he views the world using little more than his iPhone and iPad to find happiness.

We all have the power to change our lives and find happiness. I know this because I found ways to reprogram my inner circuitry and change my perspective of the world to ultimately find happiness. A few simple steps inserted into my daily routine dramatically improved my life and helped me feel more happy, joy, and fulfillment. Surprisingly, many of my new rituals were made possible using the technology I carry with me every day.

Think Big

“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.”

-Steve Jobs

I was trained to think small and seek comfort rather than risk. From an early age, many of us are told to think realistically and to leave the big audacious ideas to people with more experience and resources. But the truth is, as Steve Jobs said, “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.”

We are all born with the same basic brain hardware and though there are variations in intelligence between people, the differences are relatively minor and show little correlation with life outcomes. However, what does make a difference is how much we believe in ourselves and our capabilities. A much greater determinant of where we will end up in life is whether we have what Stanford researcher Carol Dweck calls a “fixed” or “growth mindset.”

I set out to remove the fixed mindset I had cultivated over the years. I did this through a daily practice of using my iPhone notes tool to brainstorm the biggest and craziest ideas I could think up. These ideas could be anything from starting a billion dollar business to designing a way to live on the moon. The practice of thinking big on a daily basis flexed my mind’s capacity to move past limitation and helped me become a more creative thinker.

Use Gratitude to Change Your Attitude

“Gratitude is the single most important ingredient to living a successful and fulfilled life.”

-Jack Canfield

One of the most impactful steps in reprogramming my brain to find happiness was to take a daily inventory of everything I was grateful for. Before I go to sleep each night, I make a list of the positive things that came into my life that day. For example, I might jot down a few words to remember a particularly beautiful sunset, a compliment I received, or even a meeting that went well. I use a gratitude app on my phone to record these moments.

This routine sounds trivial but I found something strange happened when I adopted the practice. After about 30 days my perception of the world began to change. I became happier because I found myself more aware of the amazing things I had in my life. I would stop several times a day to smile in recognition and appreciation of the small things in life. The change also impacted my professional life. I started to attract more fulfilling business opportunities and more positive people to the projects I was working on.

Carry Your Dreams With You

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”

– Anais Nin

What would you do tomorrow if you won the lottery? What are 10 things that you would want to accomplish with the rest of your life? Most people can only list a few things that they would do and some people can’t list any. I asked myself what the point was of running so hard toward financial independence when I really had no idea what I was going to do once I got there. If I didn’t know what I wanted, how could I achieve it?

I discovered that one of the best ways to determine what I wanted was to create a dream book of images on my iPad that I could look at every morning and evening. I gathered a list of images that represented the things I wanted most in my life and I put images representing them on my iPad and iPhone.

I often listen to my favorite music while I play a slide show of the pictures I use to remind me of the things I want to achieve, places I want to go, people I want to meet. I imagine what it would feel like if I had each of those things in my life. This exercise created a thought sequence that helped me set new goals in life and provided a deliberate destination that I could envision working and striving for each day.

Perception is Reality

Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”. Indeed, we are highly influenced by the way we see things. Changing the direction of our lives seems difficult because many of us have been conditioned to believe it is not possible.

But the truth is, changing our lives and finding happiness is as easy as changing the way we think. Changing my own life was a slow process, but I began to feel more happiness, joy and fulfillment by regularly incorporating these simple technology-facilitated habits.

Image Credit: JD Hancock

Note: This guest essay was written by Brendan Kane.

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Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and blogs about the psychology of products at NirAndFar.com.For more insights on changing behavior, join his free newsletter and receive a free workbook.

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If you found this post interesting, it would mean a lot to me if you could click on the “claps” icon below to let me know. That would really make my day — thanks!

Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and blogs about the psychology of products at NirAndFar.com.For more insights on changing behavior, join his free newsletter and receive a free workbook.

Subscribe_Whether you are designing the behavior of your users or your own habits, you'll benefit from understanding the research…_www.nirandfar.com

Originally published at www.nirandfar.com on October 25, 2013.