Gratitude is an essential part of emotional functionality for so many reasons, but never is that clearer than in the case of someone is habitually ungrateful. A lack of gratitude, or a general air of expectation and acting spoilt, is ugly. It’s a barrier, because most people do not expect the world to simply hand them things. It looks to a lot of people like bad character.
While someone who exhibits gratitude on a regular basis isn’t necessarily a good person through and through, they do tend to be both more humble, more empathetic and more attuned to reality. Learning to become a more grateful person can benefit your life in so many different ways, from better understanding your partner, to not getting quite so angry at other drivers acting dangerous on the road.
While someone who exhibits gratitude on a regular basis isn’t necessarily a good person through and through, they do tend to be both more humble, more empathetic and more attuned to reality.
It’s also excellent for giving your career something of a turbo boost. It’s a rare job that wouldn’t benefit from a sudden rush of better people skills, greater understanding of the situation around you, and more drive and motivation. People who are happier work harder, and being just a little more grateful can put you right on that path. There are tons of reasons to become more grateful as a person.
More than anything though, why not? Why do you need persuading to be a better person? Becoming a better person is such an amalgamous, myriad and confusing concept, but just the simple notion of being a little more grateful can highlight a route to improving yourself. Not only that, but if you get a little more grateful, you will see a boost in your career, as well as the rest of your life.
How exactly does it help your career? Well, if you’re anything like the rest of humanity, no matter how hard you work, eventually you plateau. You hit roadblocks in your skill, your people skills, and your temperament that allows you keep working so hard.
Gratitude, and the feelings and attitudes that stem from it, can help you confront whatever issues are holding you back, and help you move on. There are so many benefits to becoming steadily more grateful, including:
Better motivation and drive. We all get sick of work. We all become worn out and disillusioned. But you know what gratitude can do? It can throw away those expectations that precipitate disappointment and disillusionment.
If you’re not continually expecting a reward, you won’t be disappointed when you don’t get one. This means you won’t experience that common cycle of working really hard for a while, not seeing that promotion or improvement, and becoming sluggish and disheartened, till you next manage to motivate yourself. Your work will become stable and habitual, and you’ll achieve bigger things.
Better understanding of your own limits. Successful men are not defined by their strengths and abilities, it’s been said, but by their weaknesses and shortcomings, the things they’re negated, defeated and overcome. It’s only through accepting and understanding your shortcomings and limitations that you can expect to overcome them.
Successful men are not defined by their strengths but by their weaknesses. Click To TweetGratitude helps you do that because instead of focusing on the fact you’ve not got much of a brain for creativity, you’re grateful you’re being amazing with figures. There’s always a million things to be grateful for.
Better understanding of your own desires. Through understanding your own limitations, and accepting yourself for who you are, other delusions will also fall away. Much like with meditation, once you’ve cleared away all the ideas and fixations blocking clarity, you’ll be able to see a clearer and better route forward. Whether that’s a change of career, a new way of approaching your work, or even a simple renewed love and passion for your current job.
More pragmatism. Alongside the previous point, gratitude, and understanding the situation in complete clarity allows you to ignore the excuse making, the floundering and the nonsense in a way that means you can just get on with the work or problem at hand. You become more pragmatic, effective and ruthless.
Less stressed. In spite of all that, all that newfound pragmatism, self-understanding and increased working drive, you’re also less stressed! Once you accept yourself for who you are, with gratitude for your abilities and strengths and peace towards your shortcomings, you can play to your strengths. Only through that can you truly know you’ve done your best, and learn to shut off that work brain.
Stress is a leading cause of one of the biggest killers in the world: heart disease. If you learn to deal with and negate your work based stress, you’ll feel better in the short term, and possibly spare yourself some pretty ugly conditions and illnesses in the long run. Stress is linked to premature aging, hair loss, weight loss and gain, and bad sleep, so expect to find yourself looking healthier and prettier as well!
Use Gratitude to Better Manage People
Gratitude isn’t just key to understanding and getting on with yourself, but also to managing and maintaining the perfect relationship with people around you. If you’re a more grateful person in general, not only will it boost your home life, and your interactions with your family, but it will boost the people under you at work. Here’s how:
Better temperament. As you become more grateful, you inevitably become happier, more stable and less easily disappointed or disillusioned. These are the perfect traits of any great leader. Ever the optimist, hard to unnerve and consistent. All because of gratitude.