The Power of Gratitude
Over the past few weeks, I have been struggling with some major transitions in my life, both professionally and personally. These struggles have left me feeling emotions I am not normally accustomed to or that I am at least typically able to better control. It also left me with a sense of inadequacy in certain areas of my life and a lot of angst, issues that are absolutely not common for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have my moments just like everyone else, but usually I can rebound quickly, often within minutes after putting things in perspective. This one was a little different…it lingered, and to be honest, it is not 100% gone but is much better. In efforts to counter these feelings, I exercised more which helped but seemed to be a temporary solution. However, the other day, I decided to do a 10-mile gratitude run. A gratitude run is one where after each mile, you deliberately think of what you are grateful for and reflect on it. This helped immensely and it reminded me of how powerful gratitude can be.
Some of you may feel that gratitude isn’t a foreign concept. I completely agree! However, although it may be common sense for a lot of us, it is not common practice for enough of us. But habitually practicing gratitude can bring a multitude of positive results to our lives. Positive psychology research has found strong associations with gratitude and increased happiness as it has been shown to help people feel more positive emotions, bolster their growth mindset, improve their health, deal with life’s adversities, and helps them build strong relationships. Additionally, through my own experiences, gratitude also has a profound effect on our resilience (life), our learning, and our leadership by helping us overcome our own egos, by counteracting our negativity biases, and by providing us inspiration.
Overcoming Our Ego
Ego is indeed an enemy of true progress. It can lead to self-absorbed behavior that puts our own needs first, but it can also give us a false sense of our capabilities to influence situations. To be 100% transparent, I recently fell victim to the latter which I realized contributed to my current state. Let me explain how.
I run my neighborhood almost daily (some people say I might even overdo it every now and then). However, because I run so often, I know my neighborhood inside and out. I have mapped and identified 5-mile, 6-mile, 10-mile, and half-marathon routes. On the day I chose to run a 10-mile gratitude run, I was so focused on what I was grateful for that I took the wrong route and ran the 13.1-mile route on accident…a run I was not hydrated enough to complete. This left my legs cramping up at mile 10 and I decided to walk the last 3.1 miles home. This irritated me as walking 3.1 miles is very time consuming, but I didn’t have much of a choice at this point. I realized this might have been a blessing in disguise because after reflecting on what I was grateful for, I started doing some deep work on what was causing all my angst. Then it hit me…it’s like the gratitude allowed me to see what I was unable to see before. It was my ego…my big fat EGO that was the cause of all my agony.
You see, because I find my role as the person who others lean on, it makes me feel uncomfortable having to lean on others. Because I am the one who takes care of others, it made it difficult for me to let others take care of me. Because I feel like there is little that I don’t have a solution for, or since I have control and influence over most situations, when I don’t, it bothers me. In this transition phase, all of these vulnerabilities were exposed in multiple facets of my life and because of my ego, I wasn’t able to accept that I had to adjust and to see there was opportunity for growth here. But gratitude reminded me that it wasn’t just about me. It reminded me that I have amazing people in my life and that I am not inadequate because I am unable to control the situation I am in or because I need to lean on the people that care about me. It reminded me that I am grateful for a reason and that I should embrace it.
Counteracts Our Negativity Biases
We are all naturally wired to see the negative before we see the positive. We are wired to also give more credence to those negative experiences. This is called the negativity bias and is likely a holdover from the caveman days where we needed to be hyper vigilant to survive. The problem is that this bias can lead to misplaced negative emotions resulting in a fixed mindset.
Positive and negative emotions aren’t necessarily bad in themselves, it’s how we use them that can be counterproductive. They both have their place, but when we misplace the negative emotions driven by our negativity biases, it can hurt our relationships, cause us to be down on ourselves, and can limit us from meeting our potential.
The good news is that neuroplasticity has proven that we can re-wire our own brains to give the same weight to the positive things that happen to us as well. This is important because it can open us up to more positive emotions, resulting in a growth mindset. However, this is not easy. It takes a lot of practice and requires us to make a habit of deliberately identifying and reflecting on those good things. This is where gratitude comes into play. Most of us do not take enough time to truly identify and reflect on what we are grateful for and why. Making gratitude a habit can help us counteract our own negativity bias and allow us to open up to growth opportunities.
Provides Us with Inspiration
I am a believer that no matter what you do, you need to continuously find ways to be inspired. It doesn’t matter if you are working an entry level position or if you’re the CEO of a major corporation. Being inspired by others, your own capabilities, or even life in general results in us being better friends, loved ones, leaders, and people overall. I am positive we have all worked for an uninspired leader. They typically espouse a victim mentality, blame others, create toxic work environments, and probably do the minimum to complete the job. Inspired people bring positivity and life into a household, a workspace, or even an entire organization.
It is easy to get in a rut, and therefore finding inspiration is not something you do once...it must be continuous and deliberate. And gratitude not only can provide inspiration by reminding us of what we are doing this for, but also, as mentioned above, it opens up the learning centers in our brains allowing us to be genuinely curious. Curiosity is such an underappreciated trait when it comes to healthy relationships. It lets us listen with genuine interest, helps us find ways to improve our own behaviors, and drives us to know more about the people and things we find interest in.
So, I challenge you to practice gratitude. If you are already doing it, you can probably do more. If you haven’t been, start by simply journaling 3 things you are grateful for each day and reflect on why. Maybe even reach out to 5 people a week telling them why you are grateful for their presence in your life. Provide a gesture of gratitude to a different person once a week like buying someone a coffee, a small gift, or by doing a chore you don’t normally do. I promise you will not only feel good about it, you will bring more of your amazing shine into the lives of others.
Editor’s Note: Joe Bogdan is the co-founder of Llama Leadership, is an adjunct professor of leadership studies and is a senior enlisted leader in the United States Air Force. He has led various organizations with diverse missions across multiple countries and currently oversees almost 500 people composed of U.S. Military and civilian personnel in Travis Air Force Base, California.