Has gratitude turned into another thing on your to-do list? Try a stock take instead. Walk round the house and actually look at what is in it.
I used to do stock takes for a living and hated them. Counting ice cream bars in the freezer at the end of a long night. But the idea works on a life. Open the cupboard. Open the fridge. Look at the clothes. Get in the car and notice that it starts. You do not have to write three things down every morning for this to land.
One thing to try: Walk into one room and look properly at what is in it. Not a list. Just look.
In this episode
(0:05) Why gratitude needs a different angle
(1:38) Counting ice cream bars in the freezer, and hating every minute
(3:00) Walk each room, open the cupboards, open the fridge
(4:03) Getting in the car and noticing that it works
(5:31) The phone box, and what we used to put up with
(6:54) Deciding what is for tea, twice a day, forever
(8:14) Why this beats three things written down each morning
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
Has gratitude turned into another job on your list?
Three things every morning, written down, whether you feel them or not. I am for gratitude and I recommend it. I also think there is a version that asks less of you and lands harder.
Do a stock take instead.
The heart of it
Businesses count what they own every year. It has never occurred to us to do it with a life.
Count what your body can still do rather than what it cannot.
You are not being asked to feel lucky. Only to look.
I did stock takes for a living as a teenager, at the garage on the roundabout near me, from about fourteen to sixteen. Every chocolate bar. Every packet of crisps. And the worst job of the lot, counting ice cream in the freezer at the end of a long evening. A bit of overtime and a thoroughly miserable few hours.
But the idea works on a life.
Walk into each room and look. Open the cupboard. Open the fridge. Look at the clothes you own. Get in the car and notice that it starts, that the doors shut properly, that the windows go down with a button rather than a workout.
I used to have to take a pile of fifty pence pieces to the phone box at the end of the road to get any privacy, and put the phone down and wait if somebody came along. Now everybody carries one, and half of them are on loudspeaker in the street.
And do the same with what you can do. I can see billions of colours. I can hear hundreds of tones. Those are assets, and I would not want to lose one of them.
Sit down and focus on what you can still do.
I say that as somebody who cannot use his hands. Not to make you feel fortunate. Because it works better than the alternative, and the alternative is the list most of us are already running.
One small thing to try
Walk round your house and look properly at what is in it. Nothing else.
No writing. No feeling grateful on command. Five minutes and a pair of eyes.
Then sit down and do the same with your body, and put the list the right way up.
Questions people ask
Is this saying I have nothing to complain about?
No, and I go out of my way to say so. You have real problems and difficult days. Noticing what you have does not cancel them, it just stops them being the only thing in view.
Why is this easier than a gratitude list?
Because you are not being asked to generate a feeling. You are being asked to look at things that are actually there. The feeling turns up on its own or it does not, and either way you have seen your life.
How often should I do it?
Rarely. That is rather the point. A shop does not count the stock every morning, and neither should you.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
gratitude · acceptance · joy
Read the transcript
Hey, how are you doing? I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness in the Storms. And I want to talk
about a different form of gratitude.
Gratitude is one of those things that, like with everything, suddenly it becomes a good thing and then it's everywhere
all the time. That's all you hear. And I'm an advocate for gratitude. Don't get me wrong. I think it's
good. I think we should practice gratitude. I think we should have gratitude in our hearts whenever we're just getting
on with life. but however What about just taking stock of what we have? Taking stock of the things
we own. The abilities we have. And just like a shop take stock of what
they've got in their stock. Every 12 months anybody's worked at any shop, there's a love hate for this time
of the year when this happens. It's a love of the fact that you get some time, like overtime. So
you've been paid a little more and you're late into the evenings But it's a real bummer because you've literally
got to count every single thing on the shelves. Every box, everything. And it's like you've literally got to give
to the accountant everything that you own. And it also comes down to, and I was working in the Trafalgar
garage, which is my local like garage down on the big roundabout where I live. And I worked there from
about the age of 14 to about 16 or something like that I remember doing the stock take, we literally
had to count every single chocolate bar. And every single packet of crisp. And we had to... And the worst
one was going through the freezer, counting all the ice cream bars. Oh, it's a nightmare. It used to... Yeah,
it was a little bit of extra money, but I used to hate doing it. But anyway, so they take
stock of what am I worth? What have I got? What have I in this life? Imagine if we take
stock of our lives. Take stock of some of the clothes you got. Take stock of some of your abilities.
I'm able to see billions of colours. I'm able to hear hundreds of tones. I can hear music. I'm able
to walk around. I'm able to breathe by myself. I'm able to think by myself. All of these wonderful assets
I can taste. I have feelings. I can feel. You know, take stock. Because these are all things you don't
want to lose. And these are all things that give you worth. And I don't just mean material where if
They have the ability to give your life an experience. Joy. It's like just going for a walk. Just take
stock and enjoy going for a walk. As something you may know, I'm paralysed just below the neck. My hands
are paralysed and all that. And I don't mean to bring up the walk to make you feel bad. Like
you can walk and I can't. What I'm saying is I got other qualities that you may not have or
other abilities that you may not have. So just take stock of what you got in the way of skills,
abilities um And then also, what about taking stock of the stuff you got around the house? Walk around the
house. Walk into each room and look around at all the stuff you have. Open your cupboard. Look at all
your clothes. Open your fridge. Look at the food you've got. Look at the food you've got in the freezer.
And just really, I'm not saying get all gushy and like all gratitude about it. Like, oh wow, I
can't believe I got more than most and I'm doing better than most people. Or I've got nothing to be
upset about I'm not saying I'm not saying that. I'm saying just take stock of what we have. Because you've
got way more than what most people have had in history. If you think about what you've got now compared
to the richest person in the world 100 years ago, You've got way more. You've got way more than what
they had 50 years ago. During this lockdown, you have more things to entertain you, more things to give you
joy and experiences than the royal family had 50 years ago.
You've probably got more things to enjoy and give you experiences than the royal family have now, but that's a
whole different story. I'm not sure whether they would have some of the things we've got in our homes. Who
knows? But yeah, really think about what we have now. Get in the car and instead of thinking, oh I
got a nice car. I really appreciate the car. Think about the car that hasn't got rattles built in. It's
not cold. When the door slams, it's not like banging. It's all nice and just clicks together. And you wind
down the window, you just touch a button. Whereas years ago, winding down the window was like a workout. Literally.
You can remember this, see? Even just making the telephone call years ago. A, we had to get off our
butts and go to the telephone. It was normally in the hallway, attached to a wire going into a wall
and
you go back a little bit further and we had to do the workout on the telephone. Literally. Pick up
the phone and go.
Literally, it was... I might put some sound effects on that of an old telephone.
And then if you miscounted, you had to start again from You know, by the end of the week, if
you phoned your girlfriend three times a night because you had to redial every like 60 minutes.
Otherwise it would go into another hour and it would cost a lot more money. So you literally couldn't do
that.
And then for me to have any privacy on the telephone, I used to have to go to the end
of the road and sit in the call box with a pile of 50 p's And if anybody came I
say, sorry, I have to go. And then put down the phone, wait for them to go and then get
back in the call box. Whereas nowadays you literally have a phone in your pocket. You walk around with it
in your ears. Or even worse, you walk around on loudspeaker so everybody can hear you having a conversation. It
literally is. We have so much now.
And I really don't mean to be like, oh, be grateful for everything. No, just recognise what we have. Just
take stock. We don't have to be going around again oh no, my life's absolutely amazing. I got nothing to
be depressed about. I got nothing to be fed up about. I got nothing. I'm not saying we have issues.
We have problems. We have difficult times. I get that. But taking stock of what we do have sometimes just
reframes the way we feel, the way we see the world. We already have abundance, many of
us. If you've got if you've got just a fraction of stuff in your home, you've got more than most
people in the world have in your home. I can go out there and I can pick any numbers of
herbal teas. I can go out there and have toast. I can have... I think most people we're gonna have
toast. But literally, I can pick from too much food. And that's why I'm paralysed every tea time. My carers
say, what do you want for tea? I'm like, oh, really? I don't know. This time again already? I feel
sorry for every parent that has to feed their children. Seven days a week. Can we not just feed the
kids like twice a week? It's easy. Trying to decide what to have for tea seven days a week, especially
when it's twice a day. I think that's the hardest thing of lockdown when the schools are closed. We've literally
got to decide breakfast, dinner and tea. It's like, no. Can I just warm someone up in the morning and
give them a bit of lunch time and tea time? No, but we got so much choice, haven't we? Literally,
we got so much choice that it's hard to choose yeah I've got carers that can cook for me. So
literally, not only have I got the options of, right, there's this, this or this. I can go, hmm, you
could cook me a pie. You could do chips. You could do mashed potato. You could do peas or be
All sorts of things. That makes it really difficult because I got to decide.
But just what I'm saying is just stop and take stock of... What you've got. Just look around the house.
Sit down and spend five minutes sat in a chair recognising what your body can do instead of what the
body cannot do. We often sit there and go, well I cannot do this anymore. It aches and pains. I
cannot run very far. I cannot walk very far. Things like that. Let's sit down and focus on what we
can still do. What assets we have. And make use of our assets the best way we can.
I think our lives will be much sweeter. I don't think you necessarily have to wake up in the morning
and do three gratitude lists and all those things. They all help I recommend them.
But I think just really taking the stock of what you have around the house, what you're having the way
of outside the world what we have what we have access to is really quite a profound amount
of
ability to have experiences and enjoy life. And I don't think we look at them often enough. Businesses do.
They they know this importance. That's why they take their stock of their assets every year. But we don't, and
I think we should. I think we should do a stock check on what we have
and appreciate that. Very often, we go out to buy something, we realise, oh, I already have one of them.
Take care guys. That's this week's podcast. Just take stock of what you got around the house, what you got
in your life, what you have and just sit with it for a minute. I'm Steven Webb and this is
Stillness in the Storms. And it'd be awesome if you could leave a review or yeah head over my website
and book in for a coffee with me. I love meeting you guys. I love meeting the people that... Follow
me and the people that I help to make a difference in life. It's so good. I met a few
of you recently and it's so awesome. I love you guys. Take care. I'm Steven Webb and this is Stillness
