Being gracious every day for what you have in life, is one of the biggest factors in experiencing happiness. It supports a positivity mentality and helps you focus on the things you do have, regardless of how badly things may be going. It helps you be more resilient in the long-term, and it builds on the relationships that you have. Being grateful makes you more empathetic, a key competency for leaders. Additional benefits are improved health and reduced stress.
Grateful versus Thankful
Being grateful is about appreciating what you do have in life. It takes the focus away from what you want which can often lead to depression and a spiral that exacerbates the negative aspects of life. Taking gratitude to the next level, you actually acknowledge your gratitude to others. You can incorporate being more gracious towards others by saying thank you. Or send a quick note to say thank you. It takes a few seconds and it can make a world of a difference for the recipient. How you act every day is a reflection of your attitude. The more grateful you are, the more positivity will come your way.
How Can I Be More Grateful?
Write it down
Begin with a simple exercise of writing down what you are grateful for daily. It can be a bullet-point list, or you can incorporate it as part of your journaling or art journal. If it’s hard to do at first, aim for one thing daily. Once that is routine, increase the number to three things a day. You can go beyond that, but key is to get to at least three. If you are new to this exercise, it may be challenging to think of things to be grateful for. This takes a little work to reflect on your life, but it is worth it. There is no wrong answer, but the types of answers you give, may help you identify areas of needed growth.
Focus on the little things
Some things you can focus on to get started are: having a roof over your head, having food to eat, having that one good friend you can call no matter what, having good health or knowing how to treat your medical condition, having a pet that gets excited to see you when you come home after a long day at work, or the family that supports you unconditionally. Often, we take many of these things for granted. All it takes is one major disruption in life that is out of our control and we can lose these things instantaneously.
The people in our lives
Go beyond your basic necessities, and reflect on how the people in your life help you out day-to-day. Give yourself the goal to at least once a week thank someone. You will notice that you feel better for acknowledging their help, but you will also make a positive impact on them. In work spaces where thankfulness is practiced, it becomes contagious, and it becomes part of the culture. Over time, this can have dramatic effects for the better. Happier employees tend to be more productive. They will jump in wherever the help is needed, and employee retention increases, improving the bottom-line.
Being grateful and thankful builds resilience and happiness.
Learning to see the positive in things is an essential skill in self-care. Gratitude for both the good and bad in your life takes that one step further. Obstacles in life make us stronger, and in the long-run, more resilient. By looking at those challenges as a stepping stone to a better you down the road, it can make the journey easier to take. Regardless of how things are in life, being thankful to be alive is the one thing you can tell yourself everyday, when you wake up in the morning, and before you go to sleep at night. We can’t take life for granted.
IMAGE CREDIT: Unsplash | Gabrielle Henderson.