We know science says that expressing gratitude brings with it a ton of benefits. It increases happiness, improves relationships, increases one’s self-esteem, improves your career – it’s next to impossible to find someone who doesn’t feel that there is a tremendous upside to expressing gratitude. It takes only minutes a day – perhaps even seconds to practice. It costs nothing. Its benefits are endless. So why do we sometimes struggle with developing a consistent practice of gratitude?
For me, it stems back to a couple of factors – mindset and speed.
Mindset: All too often we focus our mind’s energy on all of the negative things that “might” happen, while at the same time, missing out on the positive things that “are” happening. In my case (and probably others), that mindset seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy – the negative thoughts tend to feed off of each other quickly and I find myself in a bit of a downward spiral which has, at times, proven difficult to break. I liken this type of negative-focused mindset to a snowball sitting at the top of a snow-covered hill. As the snowball starts to roll, eh, no big deal, the snowball isn’t getting too big – I can handle it. Soon though, that small snowball has grown in size..grown in speed – perhaps to a point where it’s harder to stop and we tend to let our negative mindset feed off itself which has a whole bunch of, well, negative side effects.
Speed: In the classic words of Ferris Bueller – “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it”. I love that movie and the quote could not be more true. Life does move fast and we often find ourselves just trying to keep up at times. Running out the door in the morning to get to work for that 8:00am meeting. Scrambling to get home to get your kid to baseball practice. Quickly walking from meeting to meeting with your head in your phone trying to catch up on emails. All too soon we realize that another year has come and gone and with that, countless opportunities to notice and appreciate the beauty in our world around us.
So what can we do? As David Steindl-Rast says, it might be as simple as the actions we are taught as a child when crossing the street – Stop. Look. Go.
STOP: Ferris Bueller was right – life does move fast. We do need to try to slow down to recognize the things in our life for which we are grateful – to just suspend and attend to the now, the moment. Before running out of the house to get to that 8:00am meeting – pause to give yourself an opportunity to notice things that you might take for granted – ,Notice the pictures…knick knacks. Take a minute to focus on the memories. Instead of walking to meeting to meeting with your head in your phone checking emails – stop and look up. Greet your colleagues. Smile. Take the opportunity to make a difference in their day. Be in the moment.
LOOK: Be aware of your surroundings. Look at the people in your life. Look at the things in your life. Notice the good actions of others. Look at the kids playing at the park. Keep your eyes open to things that are easy to look past. Appreciate the little things.
GO: This is the key piece – act on this appreciation. Thank people in your life that make a difference. Thank people that make a difference in other people’s lives. Gratitude can be so much more impactful on those around us if we act on our appreciation.
So, when I am struggling to be consistent in my practice of gratitude, it’s this simple set of actions that I will return to – Stop…Look…Go. Well, this, and the immortal words of the great philosopher from the 1980’s…Ferris Bueller.