Gratitude vs. drive. I posted a YouTube video on Facebook about regrets. They put a chalkboard in NYC and it said “What is your biggest regret?” There was a common theme, the word “Not” started most sentences. The biggest regrets were that most people did not take some action in life.
I got some interesting feedback. I had some people saying that they had absolutely no regrets in their life. I find it surprising they live the perfect life and have absolutely no regrets. They may have a healthy sense of gratitude, and when you have gratitude you have less regrets and depression, you’re happy with what you’ve done with your life and with the choices you’ve made. However if you go through deep introspection, I’m sure there will be choices you wish you done differently in your life. I find it surprising when someone says they have no regrets, it makes me feel like they didn’t really spend enough time doing the exercise of deep introspection. But hey, I’m happy to see them be happy.

One needs gratitude to be happy and appreciate what they have in life. And one needs the desire to grow and seek new goals. Often people are motivated by dissatisfaction in order to achieve goals. Can one have gratitude and simultaneously strive for new heights of achievement?

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246822

Drive vs. Gratitude, 4 quadrants. Which one do you spend the most time in?

High drive, low gratitude – motivated to change, working hard to achieve. Entrepreneurial, aspiring athlete or musician.

Low drive, high gratitude – more mature people, content with life, philosophers and meditation.

Low drive, low gratitude – lazy or depressed. Complains about situation but does nothing about it.

High drive, high gratitude – optimal placement but hard to achieve and stay here. Full self actualization. My take on this is “the zone” where one does not spend a lot of time reflecting on what they have, but rather where they are going. Both forms of high drive fuel forward momentum, but the difference is low gratitude uses hunger as a motivating influence where high gratitude takes it from a sense of “It’s all about the art of the pursuit”. Maybe rather than using “away from” motivation, this uses ‘towards” motivation. Away from motivation is ” I don’t want to ever be poor again” and “burn the bridges”. Towards motivation is “I can’t wait to achieve this skill, isn’t this journey incredible!” Also high drive, low gratitude can be considered coming from a place of scarcity “never want to be poor again” or “don’t want to lose my title” while high drive, high motivation can be considered coming from a place of abundance.

Holding both high drive and high gratitude can cause cognitive dissonance.

http://roryvaden.com/blog/the-power-of-will-and-the-hunger-for-success/