Gratitude
Other names:
Thankfulness
Definition:
Being thankful for what you have received; being grateful to those who've done good to you
Advice:
Keep a regular gratitude journal
Empirical Research:
In one experiment, "those who kept a weekly gratitude journal "exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared with those who recorded hassles or neutral life events." In another, young people who kept a daily gratitude journal had "higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness, and energy compared with a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others);" they were also "more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another" (CSV).
"[G]rateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, and optimism and lower levels of depression and stress" (CSV).
"Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer or reading religious material are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others. Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others’ success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and they are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons. ... grateful people are more open to experience, more conscientious, more extroverted, more agreeable, and less neurotic than are their less grateful counterparts" (CSV).
Friends report that their "grateful friends engaged in more prosocial behaviors (e.g., lending money, providing compassion, sympathy, and emotional support)" and more frequently (CSV).
"Grateful people might actually live longer than the nongrateful" (CSV).
"Obstacles to gratitude include the perception that one is a passive victim, a sense of entitlement, a preoccupation with materialism, and a lack of self- reflection" (CSV).
"To feel grateful, one needs a broad perspective on life, without which it is difficult to sense the contributions that others make to one’s well-being" (CSV).
Case examples:
Gifts of the Spirit
Further reading:
Vices opposed:
Gifts of the Spirit
Further reading:
Vices opposed:
Case Study 1
ReplyDeleteBefore opening her famous cosmetics company, Mary Kay Ash spent 25 years in direct sales. After she retired, she struggled with feelings of boredom and frustration. By cultivating and internalizing the virtue of gratitude, she was able to overcome her malaise and regain a sense of purpose, eventually enabling her to found Mary Kay Inc. As she explains in her book, The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur, "The boredom of retirement caused a deepening sense of discontent. I had achieved success, but I felt that my hard work and abilities had never been justly rewarded. I knew I had been denied opportunities to fulfill my potential simply because I was a woman, and I was certain these feelings were not mere indulgences of self-pity, because I had personally known so many other women who suffered similar injustices.
"I also knew that repressed anger was unhealthy. For years I had prided myself on being a positive person, and here I was—full of negative thoughts. To
ward off those feelings, I decided to make a list of all the good things that had happened to me during the previous twenty-five years. Forcing myself to think positively did wonders for my spirit. I was able to overcome the discontent inside me, and my old enthusiasm slowly returned." (Mary Kay, The Mary Kay Way, p. xxii)
Case Study
ReplyDeleteIn Tough Choices, Carly Fiorina explains how she worked to ensure a culture of gratitude while the Network Systems company was in the difficult process of separating from AT&T. "People really were working harder and harder just to stand still. Improved performance would take even harder work and greater discipline. We couldn’t pay people any more; we didn’t have the budget. So how could we reward them? The answer was simple, and it was the only one we had: we’d make it fun.
"We began to recognize achievements large and small. I’d call people to thank them, and especially for someone who’d never heard from a vice president before, that small gesture was meaningful. A balloon might show up at someone’s desk. I’d send silly cards. We had weekly teleconferences to track our progress, and each regional vice president would get to highlight his team’s important accomplishments of the week before. Pretty soon people got to know if their work was going to be mentioned on the teleconference, and they started to compete for the honor. I constantly traveled all over the territory to meet with our teams and our customers. At every stop we’d talk about our issues and how to resolve them, but we’d also celebrate our victories. We held contests. We gave silly prizes.
"A cynic would say these simple things couldn’t possibly matter. Anyone who’s ever led people would know that they do. The difference between missing the performance mark and making it is often only a matter of persistence—you can’t give up too soon. It’s easier to keep going when you’re having some fun along the way and you know someone cares." (Fiorina, Tough Choices, ch. 14)