Small Wisdom 1: Gratitude has transformative power

Make gratitude a regular practice for you and your teams

I just had a birthday—a milestone age—and it inspired me to reflect on what small wisdoms I’ve learned over the past decade or so. I’m sharing these lessons via my newsletter and on LinkedIn, as a short series of daily posts. 

If you find these posts insightful, consider subscribing to my Probable Wisdom newsletter or following me on LinkedIn. Plus share your own wisdoms in the comments, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there is still so much to learn.

Small Wisdom 1: Gratitude has transformative power

Whenever I’ve felt stuck, expressing gratitude has been one of the most sure fire methods to help me get out of whatever rut I am in.

This has been true for both me as an individual, but also as a practice for the teams and organizations I have led.

That’s because gratitude has a transformative power to shift your perspective. 

Instead of allowing our brains to be hijacked by thoughts of what we lack or what’s going wrong, expressing gratitude diverts your thinking out of its negative spiral and back on to a positive track as you acknowledge and celebrate the blessings that have graced you, big and small.

As an individual, embracing gratitude means recognizing that those blessings have come from outside of yourself. It reminds you that you wouldn’t be where you are, if it weren’t for someone or something else. It preps you to accept the help that you need.

As an organization, gratitude means celebrating the contributions and victories of your team, but also recognizing the factors and conditions that helped you succeed.

In short, gratitude makes you look up and look around, which is a requirement if you want to go somewhere new with any real probability of success. 

I mean, with your eyes down you could stumble and grumble onto something new, but is it likely?

Want some help expressing gratitude? Here are a few methods that have worked for me.

Gratitude rampage

I was introduced to this method in coaching training, which you can use anytime you want to bring your mind into a more positive state: for example, before an interview, when tackling something creative, or before a potentially difficult conversation.

Set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 minutes, open a blank document, and start naming the things your are grateful for and why.

A variation of this that I’ve used during team meetings, is to write down 3 to 5 things you are grateful for. Work with your team to name the source or cause of those good things before moving on to the rest of your meeting.

Gratitude letters

Write an email or letter to someone you never properly thanked. We all have people who impacted our lives positively, many of whom you may have never had the chance to thank… or didn’t realize their impact until much later.

Delivering a message of gratitude also gives you the chance to reconnect, which can be especially valuable if it’s someone you have fallen out of touch with. And research has shown that reactivating these so-called “dormant ties”*—people you once had a strong connection to—can be particularly beneficial when facing difficult obstacles.  

*Thank you Michael Soto for introducing me to the concept.

Reflecting on the life of a loved one

When you experience the passing of a loved one, as I have recently, it can be extremely cathartic to look back on their life and reflect on how much richer your life is for having had them in it. 

Of course, you don’t need to wait for someone to pass to do this. Identify someone who has inspired you or impacted your life and reflect on how they did it. You could even write them a gratitude letter with your reflections.

You can also do this for organizations or even products that you feel grateful for. Think about how they were able to impact your life and why to get inspiration for how you might do the same for others.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” - Melody Beattie

I have found gratitude to be a simple yet powerful practice that has the potential to transform your life and your current situation.

So let’s all take a moment to reflect on the people and things we're grateful for.

Not only do we get to observe and honor what is good in our world, but we greatly improve our chances to make that world even better.