Why Challenge and Risk Lead to Gratitude

Finding grattitude in challenging activities

Gratitude loves to be engaged in a process. You can stop at anytime in the day to count the reasons you feel gratitude. You can also set the process of growth that feel like your working on your purpose and the reason you are here. That creates a continuous path of gratitude waiting for you.

The brain grows and thrives with challenge. The way it thrives is stimulating happiness chemicals in the form of hormones and neurotransmitters. It loves problem solving. This is a great driver of human nature. It loves being creative. It loves contributing to the welfare or betterment of others. It loves learning. These are the ways we have evolved from cave man to Mars explorer.

In these practices, the brain sees us adapting to our environment and making strides for survival. We still have the lizard brain with two new brains that have allowed us to become habituated to risk. We don’t have to run. We can solve. We can anticipate our needs and plan. We can help others achieve their needs. These are the functions of the brain other than keeping us alive subconsciously. It has spared us the details of thinking about breathing so we could focus on other matters.

Finding Our Freedom to Solve Problems

When we have the independence to work on meaningful problems, we find ourselves feeling purposeful. The work or play can move us from something we do to who we are. The engagement has to be challenging and just a little above our current capabilities. As we succeed in the new challenge, our brain is rewarding us with happiness chemicals that induce us to do it more.

Each morning for over ten years I have sat down to write. I frequently am up at 5 a.m. because it seems so quiet and my whole nervous system resonates with the peace and freedom to do something I love without interruption. I always create a challenge of something to write whether it is posts to websites or working on a book. I thrive in this opportunity. I am so grateful.

After that I can’t wait to get out to exercise. My thing is bike riding. I get lost in it while out on the road riding along the San Diego Coast. I always have goals of riding for longer distances. I love being outside for three hour rides. In my off time, I have to figure out what gives me the stamina to ride longer. Good nutrition, good sleep, and good pedaling mechanics all help. I am so grateful that I have this opportunity.

Finding Our Passions

Getting better at something often leads to passion. Learning whether physical, intellectual, emotional or spiritual can have profound effects on who we are. As we get better, our brain is producing those chemicals to induce us to continue. We become addicted. We have to be careful because we become addicted to negative behaviors as easily as positive behaviors.

Negative or positive behaviors can become who we are. We can become a teacher or we could become a shopaholic, gambler, drinker or angry person. Negative behaviors can lead to depression, anxiety, over eating, and poor health as we start rationalizing why we are engaged in negative behaviors.

This is a good reason to plan positive behaviors in our day that will make us gratified at the end of the day that we have moved toward our purpose. We want activities that define who we are. We need the challenge to keep the growth and maintain the interest and passion. We want to think in advance of what activities will make us gratified at the end of the day that we have engaged in activities that are meaningful to us.

Finding Who We Are

The more challenging and the more risk involved the greater we define who we are. Risk does not have to be mortal risk. Some have said move toward your fear, that is where the risk for you lies. Why do people fear public speaking, writing a book, writing a blog, singing in front of others, dancing in front of others? The first reason is common, fear of looking stupid.

As a website designer for professionals, I couldn’t get them to blog on their expertise. They were not comfortable putting their thoughts on paper and sending it out there in social media to be judged. Yet it is a prime way to get more attention to a website. In the days of the internet, everyone has a chance to speak their piece and attract followers.

When I first started to blog, I couldn’t express myself in a manner that seemed interesting and intelligent. I kept blogging every day. I got better. Soon I was doing it for me. I wanted to express my thoughts and was no longer concerned with what people thought about me. I did grow my blog to over 20,000 followers.

Then, I thought what would be a bigger challenge or what was the next step for growth? Writing a book would be an extension of blogging. After 14 books I am clearly writing for myself, but the thought others would benefit still motivates me to share.

Have You Found Who You Are?

Look for things that would define who you are, but if at the same time the activity benefits others you will be more motivated. Helping others stimulates oxytocin, our happiness hormone for caring. In any process of growth, you will probably stimulate dopamine. It encourages us, sustains our activity, and addicts us to return for more.

Extreme athletes experience more adrenaline than anyone as they pit their skills against natural phenomena to achieve the impossible. They train, they visualize, they learn, and then put it all together to engage in the challenge. They drop into flow which is a state in which you are engaged in something in which you have competence and are attempting something a little above your comfort level. The engagement floods them with all the happy chemicals including endorphins. They reach a state of bliss they become addicted to experiencing often.

In this process, they lose sight of distractions and allow the subconscious to take over their physical movement. The pre-frontal cortex shuts down which is our criticism and judgement center. We can’t have our brain second guessing our actions in the midst of fast moving action. This is the fun of dropping into flow in any activity. Big rewards, no judgment.

Entrepreneurs are a form of extreme athlete. They create something from nothing. They could fail, but that is rarely in their foremost thoughts. They are fleeing being ordinary and doing predictable things, like getting a 9 to 5 job. Their worst fear is not being able to test who they are.

The Gratitude Floods In

Why does this give rise to gratitude? Going back to the beginning, the brain is either stimulating happiness chemicals in the form of hormones and neurotransmitters or defaulting to cortisol, the hormone that says we should be worrying about something.

In the process of accepting the status quo, vegetating on the couch, feeling stilted in our careers, following the same routines in which we rely on habits rather than thinking, or hiding from challenge and risk to feel safe, we are not living an exciting life. We will rarely feel gratitude for being bored.

Yes, we need challenge and risk to stimulate the best feelings and enjoy gratitude for being able to experience these feelings.

Lifestyle Posts:

Lifestyle Determines Our Health

How Lifestyle Leads to Happiness

Lifestyle Changes for Productivity

Making Gratitude a Primary Goal

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Happiness is more achievable than most people realize. It is not as complicated was we seem to learn when we are young. We can have it right away without first achieving some life goal. Learn more Available on Amazon as E-Book for $2.99 or Paperback for $6.95

Read my new book Self-Leadership. It is about time management and how to create a life that is meaningful to you and will make you more productive and employable at the same time. Available on Amazon. E-Book for $2.99. Paperback for $6.95