26. NOTICE

What’s keeping you up at night?

I’m betting it isn’t a mile-long list of everything you’ve accomplished or the many harmonious relationships you have. I can’t imagine it’s your deep satisfaction with your payroll system or your commute to work. No one lies awake, overwhelmed or fretting, about how impossibly good they look in a swimsuit.

We aren’t wired to dwell on what’s working well.

Instead, we give our deep focus to what’s painful, what’s failing, where we are inadequate or less than. We can’t sleep because we regret what we said earlier, or because we don’t know what to say tomorrow. Our negativity bias is an essential survival skill protecting us from rejection and physical or emotional harm. But that same essential skill can diminish the deep joy available within our every day.

I write and speak often about the benefits of practicing gratitude, but I’ve found there’s an important step that most people miss or skip that needs to come first: NOTICING. We can’t really practice gratitude, or what I like to call “dwelling on what’s working well,” if we don’t even notice. We must first acknowledge the quiet miracles all around and within us before we can express appreciation.

NOTICE:

• Are you reading the words on the screen clearly and with ease?

• Can you turn your head side to side without experiencing pain?

• Can your arms extend effortlessly around your loved-ones?

• Is the room you’re in temperature controlled to your liking?

• Can you breathe through both sides of your nose?

• Does your favorite clothing fit comfortably?

• Can you chew, swallow, and digest the foods you prepare?

• Will your transportation safely get you where you need to go?

• Can you dance to the music that moves you?

• Does your team show up to do the work each day?

Imagine your mind is a camera capable of snapping a picture of everything around you and within you that works just exactly as it should. Your storage would be over capacity within a fraction of a second. There’s no cloud big enough to hold that kind of perfection. When your head hits the pillow tonight, flip through that photo album. Notice.

The opportunity to dwell on what is working well is always available to us. When we hurt. When we worry. When we are afraid. When we don’t feel like we’re enough. We can notice and linger, even for just a moment, on all the quiet miracles around and within us. When we do, we conjure joy, satisfaction, purpose, and awe.

All we have to do is notice.