Think of your mind, your emotions and your spirit as the ultimate garden. The way to ensure a bountiful, nourishing harvest is to plant seeds like love, warmth and appreciation — instead of seeds of disappointment, anger and fear.
Here are 10 emotional seeds to plant in your garden now. Use them to bring fulfillment and abundance to your life, and as an antidote to negative emotions.
Gratitude
Gratitude is the single greatest power to change your life. Spiritual leaders and philosophers across the world credit a happier life to it. Deepak Chopra describes gratitude as an “immensely powerful force that we can use to expand our happiness, create loving relationships, and even improve our health.” As Tony says, “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”
Hunger
In a recent LinkedIn article Tony addressed the emotion most essential to success: “If someone asks me, “Tony what is the single most valuable secret to success in life? How do I live life on my terms and have choices, and become the best in my field?” I’d tell them that every great leader I’ve ever had the privilege to work with – whether they are a politician an athlete, a musician or a business savant – got there using one force above all other. And that’s hunger.” If you are going to create lasting value in the world, you must have the determination to make change happen.
Passion
Passion is a force that awakens you. Passion blows the lid off of your imagination, your capability and your drive. It shakes your mind free from limiting beliefs and breaks your old patterns of thinking. Passion is what gives you a sense of purpose. Excitement and passion can add “juice” to just about anything. To paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli, “man is only truly great when he acts from passion.”
Love and warmth
The consistent expression of love can melt almost any negative emotion it comes in contact with. Recognize that whether you are met with an expression of love or a cry for help, the intent is positive. Recognizing the positive intent within yourself and others allows you to be gracious rather than offended.
Curiosity
If you really want to grow in life, learn to be as curious as a child. Children know how to wonder – to marvel at things most obvious or routine to the average adult. That’s why they’re rarely bored! When you’re curious, nothing is a chore.
Flexibility
The ability to change what’s going on – to adapt rapidly and without getting upset – is the guarantee of success. Your level of happiness is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you are willing to live with. As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once said, “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.”
Confidence
When you’re confident, you are willing to experience the power of faith – the trust that things will work out. Unshakable confidence provides the sense of certainty we all want.
Cheerfulness
Being cheerful means you live life in a state of pleasure – one that’s so intense that you transmit a sense of joy to those around you.
Vitality
Vitality – or energy – is our life force. Your mental or emotional state starts with your energy level. Remember when you were a kid and you would run into a room or splash through a puddle, and you felt full of life? Well, the ultimate source of energy is our psychology. You can choose to be in an “energy rich” state of mind.
Sense of contribution
Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment. If every day you can feel that what you do adds something not only to your own life, but to others as well, then life takes on a new, deeper sense of meaning. There’s no richer emotion than the sense that who you are as a person, something you’ve said or done, has added to the life of someone you care about or perhaps someone you don’t even know.
