• The Excuse Epidemic

• Grateful Gazing

• How to Hack Your Brain for Happiness in 5 Steps: T …

• Simple Summary

I’m sitting on the kitchen floor crying with my head between my knees. It’s June 2018. There’s a chef’s knife a few inches away from me. I’m depressed. I’m lonely. I want to end it all.

Thankfully I don’t follow through, and just 3 months later I’m told

“You’re such a positive person!”

How did I go from suicidal and depressed to grateful and positive?

I hacked my brain for happiness in just 4 minutes a day.

If you complete this Lesson, you can do the same.

The Excuse Epidemic

The Excuse Epidemic (EE) is the widespread tendency to blame others and make excuses about your position in life.

As more people make excuses, they become normalised. Our desire to fit in leads us to start making excuses too.

This is not the way. Here’s why:

1. Victim Mentality

One side effect of the Excuse Epidemic: you feel like a victim — helpless and unable to change your circumstances.

• I felt like a victim in January 2018.

  • I was dumped, had an unplanned pregnancy, got an STI and to top it off, someone drove straight into the back of my parked car and wrote it off.

• I blamed others for the bad things that happened to me and didn’t think about the impact of my actions.

2. Negativity + Lack of Joy

The Excuse Epidemic makes us negative and diminishes joy.

It gets worse. We’re hardwired for negativity.

This survival mechanism is known as Negativity Dominance.

It started taking its toll on me in 2018.

• I’m sitting in the waiting room to see the doctor about my depressive symptoms and start ruminating.

  • “I’m constantly stressed about university.”

  • “I never see my friends.”

  • “My hands are always shaking.”

  • “I’m losing a lot of weight in an unhealthy way.”

  • “Nothing brings me joy anymore; everything feels like a chore.”

• And then… Nothing… I fall asleep.

• A few minutes later I wake up to the sound of my name. The doctor’s standing over me.

  • “It’s time for your appointment. Are you okay, Lennox?”

  • “Huh? Oh, right, yeah, I’m okay. This is a normal thing for me,” I say as I blink my eyes open and follow the doctor into her office.

But none of this was “normal.”

I needed to find a solution.

Grateful Gazing

Grateful Gazing (GG) is the practice of training your brain to notice and appreciate small joys in life.

Why GG is the solution:

1. Snow Groove Neuroplasticity (SGN)

SGN has two sub-parts:

1. Neuroplasticity

   • The ability of the brain’s neural networks to change through growth and reorganisation.

     • It’s essentially when the brain is rewired to function differently.

2. Snow groove

SGN is the concept of training your brain to form new, positive mental grooves that guide your thoughts towards appreciation.

It’s how I overcame depression in 2018.

• It’s July. I’m at the dining table of my grandparents’ house, sitting across from a life coach named David, explaining why I’ve been feeling depressed.

• I finish my piece and wait for David to say something back.

• But he doesn’t. He just stares at me. There’s a long pause.

• An eternity passes… And David finally says,

  “Lennox, I want you to start a gratitude journal. You’re going to write down 20 things you’re grateful for every day.”

• “20 things!?” I question. “2-0!?”

• “20 things. 2-0. They can be absolutely anything, like how the flowers on the dining table are arranged. That’s your homework. I want to see 140 different things in your gratitude journal this time next week.”

So that’s what I did.

And I didn’t stop for six months.

But I didn’t think it was doing anything until this happened.

2. Enhanced Positivity + Happiness

Grateful Gazing helps you navigate life’s challenges with a positive attitude.

I realised this at a festival with two friends in September 2018.

• Sarah, Abbey and I are in a mosh pit towards the end of the night. Abbey tells Sarah and I she’s not feeling very well and goes home early.

• Sarah and I turn to each other a few minutes later — we’ve just realised the same thing at the same time: Abbey was our lift home!

• I instinctively say,

  • “You know what!? We’ll find a way. Even if it takes us two hours, it’ll be an adventure. A fun way to end a fun day.”

• What Sarah said next changed my life.

  • I doubt she’d remember this passing comment because it was seemingly so insignificant. But compared to that moment crying on the kitchen floor, it was everything.

  • As we’re standing in the middle of the mosh pit — sweaty, sore feet, ears ringing from all the music — Sarah, with a pleasantly surprised and inquisitive look on her face and a slight tilt of her head, says the following words.

  • “Lennox, you are so positive!“

  • I’m caught me off guard because I could never have imagined being called a positive person at this point in life. But there it was. All the confirmation I needed that gratitude worked.

  • That I had formed new mental grooves and become a more grateful person.

Here’s how you can do the same.

How to Hack Your Brain for Happiness in 5 Steps: The 4-Minute Gratitude Game

The 4MGG turns your negative thoughts into positive ones by writing down 20 things you’re thankful for every day.

Here’s how the 4MGG fits into everything we’ve already discussed:

GG → 4MGG → SGN → Positivity + Happiness

• The more you practice GG, the easier the 4MGG gets — and vice versa.

This is how you play the 4MGG.

1. Relocate Notes App

• Put the Notes app in your phone’s dock (or home screen)

  • Title a new note “4-Minute Gratitude Game” (or 4MGG)

• This makes the 4MGG easy to complete and reminds you to do it.

2. Create Identity Intention

An Identity Intention is one sentence that states how you intend to become your desired identity.

Why is an Identity Intention important?

• The 4MGG is a daily habit.

• You’re 2-3 times more likely to complete a habit if you state when, where, how and why you’re going to implement it.

Here’s the formula:

Identity Intention = On [day] at [time] I will [habit] in [location] so I can become [identity].

Two versions of the 4MGG:

1. Complete 2X 2-minute sessions — one in the morning and one in the evening — where you write 10 things you’re grateful for in each.

2. Complete 1X 4-minute session in the evening where you write 20 things you’re grateful for.

Examples:

1. Identity Intention = Every day at 8 am and 10 pm I will write down 10 things I’m grateful for at the dining table so I can become a more grateful person.

2. Identity Intention = Every day at 10 pm I will write down 20 things I’m grateful for at the dining table so I can become a more grateful person.

Select your preferred version, then write your Identify Intention at the top of your 4MGG Notes page.

3. Set a Repeating Reminder

Use an app, alarm, sticky note, diary — anything — to remind you to play the 4MGG at the time(s) you’ve chosen in your Identity Intention.

4. Start Today

Starting is the hardest part.

• The most valuable skill you can develop is reducing the gap between ideation (e.g. you thinking about becoming a more grateful person) and implementation (i.e. you actually becoming a more grateful person).

Develop that skill today by playing the 4MGG for the first time.

5. Don’t Break the Chain

Once you write the 20th thing you’re grateful for, insert a tick emoji next to the day’s date ✅

If you don’t complete the 4MGG on a given day, insert a cross emoji next to the day’s date ❌

• The tick emoji is growing the chain of your habit; the cross emoji is breaking it.

  ✅✅✅✅✅✅❌✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN!

Rules of the 4MGG

1. You must write 140 different things you’re grateful for in a given week.

   • i.e. You can’t repeat the same thing on different days.

2. Gradually reduce how many things you write.

   • Month 1: 20 things every day.

   • Month 2: 20 things every day.

   • Month 3: 15 things every day.

   • Month 4: 10 things every day.

   • Month 5: 5 things every day.

   • Month 6: 3 things every day.

     • This is what I’ve been doing ever since.

     • Your goal is to grow the gratitude muscle and then maintain it with 3 things every day. Forever.

Simple Summary

The Excuse Epidemic (EE) = Blaming others and making excuses about your position in life.

Grateful Gazing (GG) = Appreciating the small joys in life.

Snow Groove Neuroplasticity (SGN) = Forming new mental “grooves” that guide your thoughts towards appreciation.

The 4-Minute Gratitude Game (4MGG) = Writing down 20 things you’re grateful for every day in 4 minutes.

Identity Intention (II) = Stating how you intend to become your desired identity.

GG → 4MGG → SGN → Positivity + Happiness

The Lesson

Overcome the Excuse Epidemic through Grateful Gazing and the 4-Minute Gratitude Game.

Cya

Don’t deprive yourself of something wonderful.

Play the 4MGG and keep yourself accountable in a group of like-minded people.

That’s what my online community provides.

Saints College is a tight-knit community of creators just starting out, not afraid to take risks, fail, iterate and grow. Together.

There are about 40 free spots left, then the price goes to $10/month. Secure yours before somebody else takes it.

Anyway, that’s it for this Lesson.

Thanks for reading — I appreciate you 🫶🏽

Keep it simple until the next one.

1  Feelings associated with the Excuse Epidemic are worsened by the Catastrophe of Unawareness. See my previous Lesson titled "I Meditated For 1,218 Days Straight. Here's What Happened" for more info.

2  Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman, 2011)

3  Grateful Gazing is similar to focussing on the positive aspect of each situation in Triangle Therapy. See my previous Lesson titled "The #1 Grief Solution You've Never Heard Of (Instant Relief!)” for more info.

4  Sharon Begley was a prominent science journalist and author.

5  The Habit Loop (as discussed by James Clear in Atomic Habits): Cue → Craving → Response → Reward. Relocating your Notes app to your dock or homescreen = a cue.

6  Identity Intention = my version of an implementation intention that James Clear discusses in Atomic Habits.

7  The quote by Dr. Joe Dispenza is from this episode of the Modern Wisdom podcast: #741 - Dr Joe Dispenza - How to Unlock Your Mind & Master Your Life.

8  Community Acknowledgements: Many thanks to the following members of the Saints College community for their help in creating this Lesson 🙏 Ryan, Roya, Lauren, Muhammad, Josh, Sarah, Heather, Han, Matt.