Have you ever thought about the practice of being grateful? Before I had depression, I NEVER really gave gratitude much thought. I just lived life and took what came and acted the way I was conditioned or trained to act and to respond.
It wasn’t until I was in crisis mode that I started grasping at anything and everything that might be able to improve my mood and mindset. Gratitude was one of the tools I used to break free of my depression. It is one I still use today and highly recommend (and actually train people on how to apply in their lives through the GRATEFUL LIVING: 5-Day Gratitude Challenge).
What you find when you start exploring or practicing gratitude intentionally is it takes awareness. You need to see what you have and learn to appreciate it. This obviously tied in with another tool I was using – meditation. Anyhow, this practice helped add more positivity to my life. When you feel like crap finding positivity is pretty refreshing like an ice cold glass of water on a hot summer day.
When we think about expressing gratitude or thankfulness to other people, or getting it given to us, we can see how this offers a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling and who doesn’t want that? It makes us feel good about ourselves when we get compliments. As a matter of fact I’d bet regular compliments and appreciation could boost our self-worth. I CAN say that these positive feelings can lift us up, boost enthusiasm, and motivate us to keep going even in difficult times. This is part of the reason I keep using this strategy.
As a business owner and a creative person I can say that I spend a lot of time creating things. Being grateful of what you accomplish can also produce pride of what you created. Maybe being creative, creating things, and then finding joy in what you created can be a good source of practicing gratitude. This could be doing crafts, knitting, painting, writing, gardening, remodeling your home, or building with Lego bricks.
Finding gratitude for what you already have (material items – home, car, family – or internal items – a body, the natural ability to breath, a mind, hands, etc.) can provide really good feelings as well.
Now let's discuss how gratitude can create a positive snowball effect.
Here are 5 benefits of Practicing Gratitude
1. Better Ability to Accomplish Goals
When you feel grateful, it tends to be a lasting and selfless feeling. It’s much more than just a momentary burst of positive energy; it has staying power that will provide a great boost for you to reach your goals.
So for example when you think of goal setting and then accomplishing the goals you set for yourself, you know that to reach your goals you have to put in effort and take action. Have you ever noticed that when you are in a bad mood it is hard to get motivated? This is where practicing gratitude on a regular basis can keep your mood positive and make it much easier to take action on a regular basis. The more active you are, the more productive you can be, which means getting closer and closer to that big goal you set for yourself.
I liked this bit of the article How Gratitude Motivates Us to Become Better People – “…a 2011 study by Robert Emmons and Anjali Mishra found that people feel motivated and energized when they experience gratitude, and that gratitude encourages them to make progress towards their goals.”
2. Build Stronger Relationships
I feel we live in a society that neglects the importance of relationships and community. 50% of marriages end in divorce. This is HUGE? Why is it we struggle with the person we are supposed to love the most? Gosh, this will open a can of worms but I think one of the problems IS related to not appreciating the small stuff and telling our partner thank you and that we appreciate them and their actions.
- How often do you say… “I love you!” to your partner. How often do you say it to your kids? What about your parents? Friends?
- How often do you say… “I appreciate you!” to the above list and to others like coworkers, neighbors, bosses, vendors, wait staff, janitors, etc, etc?
- How often do you say… “Thank you!” again to any and all people?
Here is the thing… these small statements are HUGE factors to building relationships. Relationships are also HUGE parts of our happiness. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs shows Love and Belonging as the third-tier of his pyramid. Learning to see the blessings other people bring to your life and then not just finding gratitude in these things, but communicating those feelings to the folks in your circle, brings a gratitude that can build strong and lasting relationships. Obviously this must be a sincere practice and heartfelt, but when you build these practices sincerely into your life you will see your relationships strengthen and overtime be amazed at the power of this practice.
Important Side Note: Also, sometimes people give us compliments and we are awful at accepting those compliments. Has someone ever said… “Wow! You are so great at X and I really appreciate you for helping me out with it.” and you turn around and poo-poo the compliment by saying something negative like… “Oh, I’m not that good at X.” and totally undermine the compliment and this person’s feeling and their gratitude? Yeah, me too! Can we just STOP IT!! Please learn to just say… “Thank You!” and let it at that. This is better for you and for your relationships.
To learn more you can check out this article – How Gratitude Helps Your Friendships Grow.
3. Improved Communication Skills
So in order to practice gratitude you have to become aware of little things and start noticing these items regularly. Then by thinking about them to yourself, you are communicating to yourself in ways you probably do not do often (or at least in a positive way. We seem to be able to talk negatively to ourselves pretty easily.)
If you step things up and start practicing a gratitude journal you move your thoughts to written word. Hand writing is a really powerful tool for boosting memory, understanding, and positive experiences. You can do “brain dump” type posts or well thought out posts, both can train you for better communications in other areas of your life.
Then there is gratitude including another person where you are thanking them or appreciating them. So this means taking the gratitude you notice out of your head and sharing it with that other person. This could be blurting out thank you quickly for someone that holds the door for you or it could be a well written thank you note or letter. These are a little more formal and you want people to really get your appreciation so this practice helps you find ways to show sincerity without confusing people. As they say, the more you practice, the better you get!
Here is a Communication Skills Resource that digs into gratitude and appreciation for building better communications with people in your life.
4. More effective constructive criticism
This is sort of tied in with empathy and understanding because you explore your own feelings more deeply when you practice gratitude. In life or at work we often need to evaluate someone else’s work. When we only focus on the negative we can lose our opportunity to get the best work from people.
No matter how we express constructive criticism, it often makes the recipient defensive or even angry. No one likes looking stupid or incompetent. So there is an idea of book ends where you share a positive thing on either side of the “constructive criticism”. In a book I was just reading, I think the number of positive engagements needed for strong relationship building is even higher than 2 to 1, it might be as high as 5 to 1 or even higher. So this means not just doing bookends when you deliver criticism, but ongoing praise and appreciation.
The concept, though, states you can express criticism quite effectively when you also emphasize what you appreciate about them. But remember, I feel they must feel ongoing appreciation or a single criticism with no appreciation or even insincere “bookends” could feel like an attack for some people. This is why the ongoing appreciation leads to accepting constructive criticism in a better and more productive way.
Ever thought about how YOU take the constructive criticism you get? Is it with grace and appreciation because you know that hearing the weak areas allows you to get to work improving those areas? Or do you get defensive as we mentioned above about others? Well, if you are seeking other ideas on how Being Grateful For Constructive Criticism can benefit your life, have a read of this article.
5. Preserving Positive Memories to build future happiness
Earlier I mentioned gratitude journalling. If you add this to your gratitude practice it is like you are creating a positive biography of your life experiences. Now think about having 5, 10, or 50 notebooks full of positive life experiences and going back and reading the first journal or parts of it. Then reading your latest journal. What will you find? I always find joy in reading what I was grateful for in other times of my life. I then think about if I am still thankful for those items/ideas but more importantly it takes me back and almost recreates that happy time.
The cool thing is if you think about one journal entry and close your eyes and really think about this sense of gratitude, guess what? You are creating a powerful happiness building tool. This practice can actually lift your mood and make future happiness easier to create. Reviewing old gratitude journals also shows you how you have evolved or grew over time. Maybe early on your practice was clunky and difficult and you may be able to read that in the journal. However, maybe now you find the journalling easier and deeper in gratitude in your most recent journal practice and posts. This could be something to be grateful for. Another way this practice starts to snowball.
Maybe this practice becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – by beginning a gratitude practice we become highly grateful for many areas in our life, people start to notice and appreciate our gratitude and appreciation of them, and then maybe they offer more appreciation to us. Again, before we know it we have a snowball of gratitude in our life bringing us more joy than we could have imagined and our life has changed for the better. So we are changed and the world around us is changed.
If you are new to gratitude journals you might like this article – If You Feel Thankful, Write It Down. It’s Good For Your Health.
Build a Gratitude Practice and Show Gratitude Regularly
I’ve always liked and pushed the idea of “BE the change we want to see in the world” and we often think of HUGE activism feats and social justice changes, but I think it all starts with you and small acts. You do not have to be an MLK or Gandhi to “BE” impactful in this world. Start by being an impact in your life and with your family. These actions WILL flow out into the world. I think this photo speaks volumes on this idea – Until you fix your heart (and I’d add mind), and address it in your home and family, no change will ever happen out in the world. It is our duty to work on us first.
(photo side note: I do not own the image below or know these people, but their sign is powerful. If you know these people or the photographer please connect me so I can confirm the use of this powerful message.)
Also know that although these actions seem selfless, they also serve you and benefit your mental health, happiness, and longevity in life so this is a self-care practice as well. When you show your gratitude on a regular basis, you change the way you think. You start building gratitude muscles.
When we hear the term “living the good life” we think of monetary things but in reality, living the good life can very much be created by just being thankful for what you already have. You will have more positive thoughts and minimize negative thoughts.
One way to show your gratitude consistently is to remind yourself of the big picture when a negative thought arises. This brings up my mindfulness practice of “Catching myself in the act”. The sooner I do this, the sooner I can find a positive thought and start breathing. This can change your mindset. Give it a try the next time you find yourself overwhelmed by negativity.
If a petty argument with your spouse makes you feel angry and heated, take a deep breath and think for a moment. Remember that the argument is not permanent and, instead, feel grateful for the gift of this relationship. I sometimes step away for a few minutes to regain composure and come back with a calm mind to find a better solution to whatever we were talking about.
Our days on this earth are numbered so we must cherish the time that we do have and
enjoy the benefits of living each day as if it were our last.
ONE LAST THING… a regular gratitude practice is great, but although I recommend doing a gratitude challenge daily to kick the practice off, a daily practice is not recommended, but once a week can be the perfect amount to reap the rewards of practicing gratitude.
Good Luck and I wish you well.
Peace, Love, and Respect to you, my friend!
If the thought of starting a gratitude practice feels overwhelming and you just don’t know where to start, why not use my GRATEFUL LIVING: 5-Day Gratitude Challenge as a tool to get started. You might be surprised how these 5 days could change your life for the better!
