Let’s Lean into An Attitude of Gratitude (All Year Long)?
Last month, we celebrated Thanksgiving which, by tradition, commemorates the first harvest festival enjoyed by the Plymouth Colony settlers and their Wampanoag neighbors in 1621. For many American families, part of this annual “Turkey Day” celebration includes asking each person sitting around the dinner table to say what they are thankful for. To some, this ritual comes off as corny. But it serves a definite purpose. In fact, practicing and expressing gratitude is so powerful—and so healthy—it’s something I recommend we all do not just on Thanksgiving, but on every day of the year.
Webster’s Dictionary defines gratitude as “Conscious of benefit received; expressive of thanks; well pleased.” Most of us practice some form of gratitude habitually when tossing a casual “Thank you” to a retail clerk following a purchase, to someone who holds a door open to us, or when a family member hands us the TV remote. But real gratitude goes much deeper than mere manners. It’s a profound psychological state that can often mean the difference between success and failure, between disease and wellness, and between mental health and depression.
At the center of gratitude is the realization good outcomes tend to arise from forces outside ourselves, be they directly from others, from our heredity, from society at large, from nature, from God, or from just random chance. Extrapolating from this truism, psychologists have identified three types of gratitude. The first is as an “affective trait,” or one’s overall disposition. (Some people are just more grateful by nature.) The second is “mood,” a general feeling capable of fluctuating from day to day, or even from hour to hour. And the third is a “reactive emotion,” or what we feel when someone does something generous for us, be it as simple as bestowing a compliment or as profound as teaching us a critical life skill.
With some, if not all, of these ideas in mind, Scientists have done quite a bit of research on gratitude’s effects on the human body, our psyche, and our health. They’ve found that practicing gratitude on a regular basis actually rewires our brains, (re)training the pre-frontal cortex to focus on positivity and suppress negative impulses. Long-term positive effects include measurable health benefits, making a person more resilient to the proverbial slings and arrows of daily life, and improving one’s overall sense of well-being,
For an in-depth look at the science of gratitude and its benefits, I recommend this white paper, appropriately called The Science of Gratitude, published in 2018 by the Greater Good Science Center for the John Templeton Foundation at U.C. Berkeley. The document explores gratitude’s evolutionary origins (Spoiler: It’s not unique to humans), its benefits to the individual practitioner, and how it serves as a "social glue”, strengthening communities.
It's a good read.
At this point, you may regard such insights as too “touchy-feely.” A bit Pollyannish. After all, we live in difficult, some might even say perilous times. Inflation is at its highest level in 40 years. Experts are warning of a major recession next year, and the ongoing war in Ukraine is destabilizing economies and threatening the energy and food security of billions throughout the world. Meanwhile, North Korea is threatening nuclear Armageddon. Our children’s literacy scores continue to plummet despite billions poured into education initiatives. Oh, and did I mention we still haven’t tackled homelessness—which only seems to worsen.
How can we focus on gratitude and being thankful when things are so hard? For starters, we needn’t pretend things are not difficult when they unquestionably are. Yet at the same time, we can’t say there aren’t good things happening in the world. Life is—and continues to be—a combination of light and dark, of good and evil, of sweet and sour. To hold a perpetually negative view of things is just as disingenuous as having a perpetually positive one.
As thoughtful adults, we can hold both positive and negative views, and thus navigate life more authentically. And healthily? Yes, indeed. Through gratitude. Proceeding from this attitude can especially enable us to cope with our incessant challenges, thereby bringing greater balance to our existences.
So, how do you practice gratitude? Here are some useful ways:
Start a gratitude journal. Write down a few things you are thankful for each day.
Look for glimmers of closeness you felt with someone in the course of a day.
Celebrate what you have, instead of concentrating on what you don’t.
Tell the people in your life something you appreciate about them. And often.
Also, give yourself positive affirmations.
Remember to slow down, especially to notice the beauty surrounding you.
******
Is your company struggling to infuse a culture of gratitude? Changing the status quo can be difficult, but we can help. As organizational leadership, culture, and compensation specialists, we empower businesses of all types to truly thrive, starting with how people interact with one another. For more information on how to foster a culture of gratitude this holiday season—and beyond—please contact me at laura@conoverconsulting.com.