Gratitude Interrupted? 5 Roadblocks and Their Simple Fixes | Holistic Happiness Club | EP 69

In this episode of the Holistic Happiness Club, we dive into the 5 biggest obstacles to practicing gratitude and explore actionable solutions to overcome them. Whether you're new to gratitude or struggling to stay consistent, this episode breaks down the psychological barriers that often get in the way of feeling truly thankful.

1. Adaptability: Our brains are wired to adapt quickly, meaning the initial excitement from positive experiences fades fast. This "gratitude fade" makes it hard to stay appreciative of everyday blessings. We’ll discuss how to reset your perspective and keep gratitude fresh in your daily routine.

2. Novelty: Repeating the same gratitude exercises can make the practice feel stale and uninspiring. To keep gratitude impactful, it's essential to add variety. We share tips to make your gratitude practice exciting and effective over time.

3. Entitlement: Feeling like we deserve everything we get can block gratitude from taking root. When entitlement creeps in, we lose the ability to truly appreciate what we have. Learn how to shift your mindset from entitlement to appreciation and unlock deeper fulfillment.

4. Superiority Complex: When we start comparing ourselves to others or feel superior, gratitude can take a back seat. This episode explores how to overcome the superiority complex and practice humility, which is key to fostering genuine gratitude.

5. Past Regrets: Dwelling on past mistakes can cloud the present moment, making it hard to appreciate what's going well. We share how to let go of past regrets and embrace gratitude for the here and now.

Tune in to discover mindset shifts, gratitude hacks, and practical strategies to overcome these obstacles and create a lasting, fulfilling gratitude practice!

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My Channel is about Holistic Happiness. 

I come up with the topics I think are necessary for 360 degrees of happiness; when I say holistic happiness or 360-degree happiness, it includes health, Success, career, work life, social life, and every other aspect of life. I focus on mental health primarily, but mental health cannot be excluded from any aspect of life.


So, my focus is Happiness, which includes not only positive psychology like gratitude, mindfulness, surrender, forgiveness, letting go, etc., but also your success in life, be it in your career or anything else that you consider a success. I believe Happiness can only be inclusive.

Disclaimer: I do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred by you acting or not acting as a result of watching any of my publications. You acknowledge that you use the information I provide at your own risk. Do your research. Copyright Notice: This video and my YouTube channel contain dialogue, music, and images that are the property of the Holistic Happiness Club. You are authorized to share the video link and channel and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to my YouTube channel is provided. © Holistic Ha

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome back to another interesting episode of Holistic Happiness Club. And today's episode is about overcoming gratitude challenges. I have listed down five obstacles that are not allowing you to feel grateful, and also they are preventing you to practice gratitude in a meaningful way, in a fruitful way. So these are the challenges that you face that we face when we are practicing gratitude in a traditional manner. Alright, so we will look into these obstacles, we will find what are the solution for these obstacles. And number five is the most important one, so you cannot miss that one. Alright, so that is today's episode is all about. But before we get into today's episode, I just want to say thank you so much. Thank you so much for tuning in to holistic happiness club. And a special, special thank you to all of you who tune into holistic happiness club every single week. Your investment of time, your trust in me and holistic happiness club, that's the motivation, that is the fuel that keep us going and that motivates me, that helps me to come out with more and more meaningful content every single week. So thank you so much for your support. Keep supporting me and keep supporting holistic happiness club the way you have been supporting so far. Thank you so much for that. Let's get into the episode. Hi, my name is Akshay Tiwari. I'm a holistic happiness coach, author of the book named Usher, and the founder of Holistic Happiness Club. Holistic Happiness Club is a place where we talk about happiness in a holistic manner. We understand that happiness is not a single faceted thing. It's a multifaceted concept. Everything that is the part of our life, everything that touches our life is the part of our happiness as well. So in holistic happiness club, we talk about everything that is part of our life, be it relationship, health or productivity, career, money, wealth, spirituality, personal growth, everything. More about me and more about holistic happiness club at the end of the episode. But for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy today's episode. So let's dive into the topic of the day. Five obstacles that are preventing you from feeling grateful and practicing gratitude in the right manner. All right, so before we get into these five obstacle, very quickly, let's brief about what is the transformative power of gratitude? What is gratitude capable of? Why should you practicing gratitude? Studies have suggested that by practicing gratitude just for a little while, you can improve your mental health, you can enhance your relationship, you can increase your resilience, you can reduce your stress, you can achieve greater life satisfaction, and you can heightened your empathy. So just by practicing gratitude for few minutes a day on a daily basis or on a regular basis for certain amount of time, it creates a massive impact. And it is not only for the days when you practice it. It has a profound impact even after you stop practicing it. So I'm not suggesting that you stop practicing gratitude, but I am suggesting that gratitude has a profound effect on your daily life. But the problem here is when we practice gratitude daily, it sort of brings some challenges, right? So even when we do not practice gratitude, then what all the challenges are, they are the same kind of challenges comes in our way when we start practicing gratitude on a daily basis. So those are the obstacles that we are going to talk about. So the obstacle number one is novelty. Actually, the thing is that our brain always craves for the novelty. Meaning brain is always looking for new, new kind of pleasure, new kind of stimuli. So brain is always seeking out novel activities, new activity, activities. So. So to be engaged. And with the regular activities, constant repetition, it becomes monotonous, it becomes boring. So when you are doing any activity, anything that is. So let's say there is a blessing that you are having a house, but you are seeing that house on a daily basis, it becomes a little monotonous, little, you know, boring. And that's why you stop feeling grateful for that. Similar thing happens when you are practicing. Same kind of activity, same kind of journal you are writing every day for gratitude, right? So you start, you start craving for the, you know, novelty. Your brain starts craving for the new stimuli to feel grateful, right? It wants to find out new kind of blessing. It fades away. The, the blessings that you have on a daily basis, they fades away in the background. All right, so that is the first obstacle. Whether you are practicing gratitude right now or you are not practicing gratitude, this is a big obstacle. So the way you are going to avoid this obstacle is by being mindful. Also avoid repetition and do unique things daily. Alright. When you are practicing gratitude. So when you are practicing gratitude, there can be multiple kind of exercise. There can be exercise when you are meditating over it. There can be exercise when you are writing about it. There is gratitude jar and there are all sorts of exercise. I also teach multiple exercise on my 21 days gratitude journey. If you want to find out you can connect with me. I will let you know more about it anyways. So the point here is that you can design new, new kind of exercise to find gratitude in your daily life. So that way your mind will get novelty and you will not be bored with the same kind of exercise even when we are. When you are not practicing gratitude, your mind always try to find novelty in order to feel grateful. So why not introduce this kind novelty factor in your gratitude practice that will make it even more effective. Alright, so before going ahead and before talking about rest of the four obstacle and their solution, I have a very special request to all of you. The request is that if you are listening to this podcast over iTunes or Spotify, they are having a very special feature that you can rate this podcast up to five star. So please rate this podcast up to five star and please leave the feedback that what you are liking about this podcast, what you are not liking about this podcast, what else you want to hear from me? Is there any topic you want me to talk about? Anything? Any kind of feedback that you can leave? I appreciate all kinds of feedback. So that is my special request. And if you are listening podcast this show on the YouTube then please like the video, please share this video with others with whom you think this content will be useful and please subscribe to the channel as well. So this is my special request and without further delay, let's dive into the further episode. Alright? So 2nd, 2nd element or second obstacle in that prevents you from feeling grateful is entitlement. Okay? Entitlement means that you feel that this is anyways supposed to happen to you, right? So meaning you are feeling like that you are privileged. So there are so many things that comes with this privilege and they are supposed to be there. So let's say you are born in a rich family or upper middle class family. So you have a big house, maybe you have some house help as well available to you. You went to good school. So you take these things for granted in comparison as you should be taking these things as granted, not for granted, right? Because these things are granted to you that you did not work for them. So you should be feeling grateful for that, right? So you please recognize your privilege if you feel entitled. That entitlement will lead to expectation rather than appreciation. So when you recognize your privilege, that you are privileged. There are things that that has been given to you as granted. You will feel appreciative about those, those things. But if you will feel entitled that I am entitled to all those privileges, all those luxury, comfort, then it will lead to further expectation. And at the end you are going to feel disappointed because expectation leads to disappointment at the end. Whereas if you are feeling grateful for that, and if you are appreciative about those privileges, you are going to feel much more happier. So how you can come out of this entitlement? Practice empathy. Consider others perspective and challenges. So when you look things from others perspective, so all the luxuries that you have, when you look from the perspective that many, many people in the world, they are not having this luxury, then you can feel that these things that you are having right now, then you can feel appreciative about those things. So practice empathy. See things from others perspective as well. Also, the second thing that you can do is express appreciation whenever things are happening to you. Let's say suppose some house help is there and he or she is helping you out with some chore. Be appreciative. Say thanks and mean it. Say thanks from your heart and thank people for their contribution, not just by words. Feel that thankfulness in your heart. Think about that. There are so many people who are not getting this kind of contribution, that kind of effort that you are getting from other people, right? So be appreciative about them and express that appreciation to other people as well. Alright, so that was the second obstacle, second challenge in order to feel grateful. Third one is superiority complex. So when we think that we are superior than others, I'm much more wise, I'm much more intelligent, I'm much more sharp, I'm much more powerful, I'm much more tall and etcetera, etcetera. Then we start thinking that these things, that these good things that are happening to me, they are bound to happen again. It's kind of entitlement, but a little bit difference is there in entitlement and superiority complex. You think that you are much better than the other. You think that you have worked much harder than the other. You deserve much more than the others. All right, maybe you have worked hard, maybe you have, you know, you have given your blood, sweat and tears in order to achieve something, but there has been so many other factors that were not in your control. So bee appreciative about the fact that results has been in your favor where as your hard work is not going to be discounted so feel good about it, you know, get a boost for your self esteem. But at the same time, don't be egoistic. Don't feel that this is a kind of a superiority complex, that you can. Only you can do it, no one else can do it, right? So self reflection is one of the thing that you need to do in order to check your values and belief system. If you are feeling superior to others, that can reduce the empathy which we just talked about and block your gratitude for what one has, okay? For what you have, right? So avoid comparison. Self reflect on your values. That was the first point. And second point is avoid comparison. Don't compare yourself with others. Okay? Whatever you have. Appreciate unique qualities in everyone. In you also. In others also. Maybe you are good at someone. That is why you are getting certain privileges. That is why you are getting certain fruits that you are enjoying right now. But there are other people who are good in other things, all right? So appreciate unique qualities in everyone and understand that it takes all kind of people to make the world that in which you are living in, right? Comparison to others can foster pride rather than gratefulness. So avoid comparing yourself and if needed, seek mentorship. Also learn from others wisdom and experiences. When you. When you. When you are going to learn from others wisdom and experiences, you are going to feel that, okay, there are people who are much more superior to you. So it's all it is. It is always like that. You are going on a journey and there are certain cars which are ahead of you and there are certain cards which are behind you. There is no race. Everybody is on their own journey there. They have started on their own time. So it's okay. Everybody has a different timeline. You are not superior to anyone. At the same time, you are also not inferior to everyone, right? So self reflect, avoid comparison, and if needed, and if possible, seek mentorship. All right? Fourth one is a big one. Past regrets or the present regrets also, right? So what happens if there are so many guilts and regrets that are coming from the past? Then you start feeling the low self esteem for yourself. Okay? And it. It becomes hard to. To focus on the present and appreciate the blessings that you are receiving and that you have received and that you are having right now in your life because you are consumed by the regrets. And if you have too many of them, it becomes so heavy on you that you are not. You are kind of blind to the current blessings that you are having right now. Let me tell you that if you are eating two times a day and you are having roof on your head and you are having water in your home and you have certain decent clothes to wear. And if you are listening to this podcast, most likely you are having a gadget on which you can listen to this podcast. It means mostly you are privileged, then you are more privileged than half of the world, right? Because half of the world does not have all these things. So you are in the upper 50% of the people. So appreciate this fact. And yes, we all have some problems. We all had some problems in our past. There are things that we are not proud of. We all have done those things. But if you keep sulking about it, if you, if you let those things consume your present, you are not going to be able to see the blessings that you are having and that you are receiving today. So the way you get out of this is by accepting, okay, by accepting the past mistakes. And if there are things that others has done wrong to you, right. So by forgiving them. And the more you practice gratitude, more you will be able to accept the present, more you practice the gratitude, more you will be able to forgive others and more you will be able to accept the present, more you will feel grateful, more you will be able to forgive others, more you will feel grateful. So it's a circle. Start where you can. If you are, if you are finding it hard to accept the present, start with gratitude, all right? And if you are able to accept the present, then start there. If you are able, if you are finding it hard to forgive people, then start with gratitude. Forgiveness will come slowly. And if you are finding it okay to forgive people, then first start with forgiveness. It's a circle. You can start wherever you want to start, wherever you can start from. Alright? Look at past as that. There were lessons that you were that were needed to learn for you. And though those were the situation, they were needed for your growth. Identify growth opportunities from your past experiences, what you can learn from those mistakes that you have made or the situation in which you have been right. And also practice mindfulness. Focus on the present moment and the current blessings and opportunities that you are having right now. So that's the way to come out of regrets. And the last one, as I said, that it is going to be the most important one, which is adaptability. The fifth obstacle in order to feel grateful or to practice gratitude is adaptability. So let me tell you, and let me talk a little bit about adaptability. What is adaptability and why it is there. If it is an obstacle to practice gratitude, why it is there in our head. So the thing is that on a daily basis, we are doing hundreds of things, okay? We are making hundreds of decision on a daily basis. The thing is, most of those decisions are on autopilot basis, right? Because we are adopted. So we need to perform so many things on a daily basis. So things which are the repetitive, repetitive in nature, our mind starts developing pattern for them and we become adopted adoptive to those things. For example, brushing your teeth. Imagine that you are waking up every day and you have to decide from which hand you are going to pick the toothpaste, how you are going to open the, you know, the mouth of the toothpaste and in which hand you are going to hold the toothbrush, how much you are going to press it, how much you are going to take it and that the paste you, how much you are going to take it out and how you are going to brush each motion. You have to decide how many times you have to brush each teeth that you are going to. Each tooth that you are going to decide. So it will become a headache for you, right? By the end of brushing itself, you will feel tired because it will become a great mental exercise for you. Okay? So our mind, which is a very powerful organ, so it develops pattern and it adopts those activity in which it can find pattern. So our brushing our teeth is a daily activity which is easily observable by mind. So we get adapted to that. Similarly for walking, similarly for driving, etcetera. Right now, how it becomes obstacle. Because we get so much adopted to the current environment. We adapt everything. Every blessing that we have right now, we stop looking at as a blessing, okay? Because we are adopted for that. Every day we are coming home from office, we are coming home and home is a blessing. But every day we are coming, so we stop noticing that it is a blessing to us. Also how it hinders your gratitude practice now. So if you are practicing same kind of activity for gratitude on a daily basis, what happens? Your brain will develop pattern that, okay, this person is going to write three good things that happened in the day, okay, that might be some new things, but most likely because the mind is observing the pattern, it is getting adapted to that particular gratitude practice. Then what will happen? It will stop giving you the kind of result. The same. If you are doing the same activity on a daily basis, same gratitude practice on a daily basis, then it will stop giving you the same kind of result which it was giving earlier. Okay, so what is the way out of it? The thing is you need to. First of all, you need to practice mindfulness. Because when you are mindful about any moment, there is something new that you will find. It will unfold in a new way because this moment is unique. Maybe you have brushed yesterday also your teeth. But when you are today, when you are brushing your teeth, it is different from yesterday. Maybe we have not noticed because we were not mindful about it. So practice mindfulness. That is one thing. Second thing, in order to keep the novelty in the exercises, keep renewing the exercise. Don't do it on a daily basis. Maybe two or three times if that fits in your routine, two or three times in a week. That is also good. And try to be creative with gratitude practices so that your mind does not get adapted to those practices. Okay? So that is what adaptability is. And that is how you can come out of adaptability and embrace the change. So those were the five obstacles that you need to be aware of in order to practice gratitude. All right, so that is the end of the of the title or the topic of the day. But before ending the episode, I just want to summarize this. First that cultivate a daily gratitude practice, or maybe cultivate, you know, regular practice for the gratitude. If not daily gratitude journaling, or if you are writing gratitude journal, then try to be creative and try new new things to write about and try new pattern to write about. Or you can find new practices also. Second thing is that you need to be practicing mindfulness so that you can meditate on the present moments, blessing and acts of kindness. Kindness. Perform random acts of kindness regularly. So that was the summary of the whole topic of the day. Now, before ending the episode of the day, there are few things that I want to announce. The first thing is that I have written an ebook, the Happiness Blueprint, the practical strategies for a fulfilled life. So it's a pocket size ebook. It is full of so many actionable items that you can practice right now and increase your happiness quotient. Right? So to download this ebook, you just need to go to the link which is given in the description and go ahead and download this e book, start practicing and start changing your life from today onwards. Second thing, if you want to connect with me and if you want to find out the roadblocks that are blocking your happiness and success and growth, you can connect with me on one to one basis. We will discuss on a one to one basis and we will discover your roadmap, your blueprint for happiness, success and growth. If you want to follow me on social media, then Instagram is the place and @happinessarchitect is my Instagram handle. I'm most active on Instagram compared to other social media places. So you want to follow me on Instagram. Alright. And if you want to have more information about me and the programs that I run, the workshop that I run then you can go to my website, that is akshaytiwari.in and you can find more information there. Alright. So that was the end of the episode till the time we are seeing each other again. Take care of yourself, take care of your loved one and take care of the people around you. And always remember that happiness is a lifestyle. God bless you. Bye bye. Take care.