https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/i-asked-300000-people-to-share-habits-that-changed-their-lives-here-are-the-most-popular-answers.html

In 2021, I quit my $200,000-a-year job as a corporate lawyer. I was depressed and completely burned out. I needed to take a step back and take care of myself.

Since then, I’ve been prioritizing healthy routines. I also started my own small law firm in 2022, and became an advocate for mental health awareness on social media.

I’ve created a community of over 300,000 people across TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram who, like me, are putting their well-being before their careers. Recently, I asked them: “What small, non-negotiable habit has changed your life the most?”

Here were the four most popular answers:

2. Practicing gratitude

A huge amount of responses involved focusing on the positives rather than dwelling on the negatives.

I keep a gratitude journal, and whenever I’m feeling down, I’ll answer these prompts:

• What is one thing that went better than expected recently?
• What is one goal that I’ve accomplished, and how has it made my life different?
• What is one thing that I am thankful for today?

When I’m done, I feel more grounded, grateful, and focused on what I have instead of what I wish I had.

“Gratitude is a fuel. It’s a dangerous thing with this whole desire thing to be fueled by something negative.”

“Desire can be negative. It can be based on fear. I didn’t really want financial freedom; I was afraid of doing a job I hated. It worked, but it makes you more anxious and stressed along the journey. With negative fuel, you’re doing the journey to get something in the future instead of enjoying every step of the way.”

Dr. Andrew Weil: I wrote a book called Spontaneous Happiness, which is about emotional mental health. And it really goes into great detail about how to manage depression, anxiety with non-medication means, knowing that the medication is there if you need it. But for depression, we have tremendous evidence of the value of physical activity, both as a preventive and as a treatment. Tremendous evidence for the use of supplemental omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil, or fish. There’s an enormous variety of psychological methods, things like cognitive therapy, which I think are extremely useful. There’s a whole range of spiritual techniques that should be looked at, whether it’s meditation, mindfulness, or even gratitude. There’s very interesting research showing that just the simple act of keeping a little journal of things to be grateful for and making a note of that as you go to bed can improve mood for lasting effects for a month.

https://tim.blog/2022/08/18/dr-andrew-weil-2-transcript/

give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Several philosophers suggest that as far as feelings go, gratitude requires some degree of goodwill toward a benefactor, understood as wishing a benefactor well (Walker 1980–1981; Herman 2012).

Goodwill in this sense should be understood not strictly speaking as an affect, but as a disposition to have certain affects in certain situations—what we might call an affective disposition (Manela 2016b).

For a beneficiary to have goodwill toward his benefactor is for the beneficiary to have dispositions to be pleased if things go well for her and a disposition to be sad or upset when things go poorly for her (Manela 2016b).

Insofar as goodwill is necessary for gratitude, it may mark another distinction between prepositional gratitude and propositional “gratitude” (Manela 2016a).

I can be perfectly grateful that it did not rain on my wedding day without wishing anyone well.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/

3.2 Affective Elements

Most philosophers agree that in addition to certain beliefs, gratitude calls for certain feelings or affects in a beneficiary, without which he fails to count as grateful.

One notable exception is Hichem Naar (2019), who argues that mere grateful beliefs, unaccompanied by feelings, can constitute a shallow kind of gratitude he calls “generic gratitude”, typically appropriate in response to trivial favors.

Even Naar, however, acknowledges that “deep gratitude” includes certain feelings.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/#CogEle

Gratitude calls not only for the formation of certain beliefs, but for their persistence as well. A beneficiary who forgets an act of beneficence (or, at least, forgets too quickly) seems to fall short of what gratitude calls for (Aquinas II–II, q. 104, art. 1; Seneca On Benefits: II.10.4; III.5.2).

In fact, according to Seneca, a beneficiary who forgets a benefit is “the worst and most ungrateful” of beneficiaries—perhaps because merely remembering a benefit is the easiest part of being grateful (Seneca On Benefits: III.5.2).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/

Though the content of grateful beliefs may vary, a beneficiary must form more than just the belief that something good has happened to him, if he is to qualify as grateful to R.

If a benevolent stranger saves my life at great risk to herself, and I consequently form no beliefs about her as an agent (e.g., that she is a benevolent or brave person, or that she cares about me), then I fail to be grateful to her—though I may be grateful that she saved me if I form the belief that something good has happened to me.

The difference in the content of the beliefs called for in response to benefit from an agent, on the one hand, and benefit more generally, on the other, is yet another way in which prepositional gratitude is distinguished from propositional “gratitude”, or appreciation (see section 1).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/

Though the content of grateful beliefs may vary, a beneficiary must form more than just the belief that something good has happened to him, if he is to qualify as grateful to R. If a benevolent stranger saves my life at great risk to herself, and I consequently form no beliefs about her as an agent (e.g., that she is a benevolent or brave person, or that she cares about me), then I fail to be grateful to her—though I may be grateful that she saved me if I form the belief that something good has happened to me.

The difference in the content of the beliefs called for in response to benefit from an agent, on the one hand, and benefit more generally, on the other, is yet another way in which prepositional gratitude is distinguished from propositional “gratitude”, or appreciation (see section 1).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/

Some have argued that all instances of gratitude have a certain cognitive element in common: a belief in or an awareness of one’s dependence on others—the sort of awareness typically associated with humility (McAleer 2012; Roberts 2014).

These philosophers argue that humility is an essential part of gratitude, and that being humble is always part of being grateful.

Manela (2016a) argues that this generalization may be overstated.

Humility-related beliefs may be a part of a grateful beneficiary’s response to a benefit that he desperately needed and could not provide for himself.

But if R benefits Y by doing something that Y was perfectly capable of doing for himself (and something Y himself has done for others in the past), then Y could be grateful to R without, in that instance, being aware of any dependence he might have on others.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gratitude/#EleGraRes