Since February, I have read countless articles and taken courses such as well-being, happiness, mindfulness and resilience and found out that they all have one important trait in common. It is practicing gratitude. These courses shared numerous research that show practicing gratitude has a positive impact on our lives when done consistently. I’ve started to keep a gratitude journal to make use of this positive effects. I must admit my life isn’t transformed, but I feel happier. During the resilience course last week, it came as a surprise that my way of thinking about gratitude was pretty narrow. So, what is gratitude, and how can we benefit from it?
Gratitude means recognizing all the good things we receive and appreciating our blessings. It helps us to focus on what we have instead of what we lack. Even though life isn’t perfect, when we focus on the positive things, we will have better lives. So, that’s what I was doing, counting my blessings. However, there are two other beautiful ways to practice it and increase our life quality and happiness.
One way of practicing gratitude is by seeking goodness in negative situations. Not only will it help us to better deal with difficult situations, but it will also help us look at them with a positive approach. For example, when I was new in my current job, my manager was very hard on me. Now I see that the pressure she put on me helped me to learn a lot in a short period of time. At that time, I was so unhappy, but now I’m grateful that I can do any job with the knowledge I gained, without needing any supervision. I wish at that time I had kept my positivity, focused on the benefit of having a new job and found ways to learn my job quicker instead of concentrating on my supervisor’s attitude.
Another way of practicing gratitude is to be kind to those around us. When we express our gratitude and are kind to our family, friends, and coworkers, we will build stronger relationships. On the other hand, so many researchers discovered that when we are kind to a stranger it surprisingly helps us to feel better throughout the day.
Practicing gratitude seems to be easy, but when it comes to doing it daily it becomes somewhat challenging. We may easily identify all the good things coming our way but to get more benefit from it we should definitely seek positivity in negative situations. In addition to that, we need to practice it consistently to be able to see long-term results. When we truly practice this priceless mentality, we will feel happier, become more resilient, build stronger relationships, and even sleep better.
Here are some Coursera courses and articles if you want to learn more about gratitude and gain more insight about it.
In Praise of Gratitude – Harvard Health
Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills by University of Pennsylvania
A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment by Indian School of Business
The Science of Well-Being by Yale University
Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science by University of Pennsylvania
Next time you put your head on the pillow, please try practicing gratitude and hunt for the good in your experiences instead of overthinking negative thoughts and ruminating on your mistakes. Be aware that we all easily get used to the things we have in our lives; we can clearly see that what we have today used to be our dream, when we slow down and look around. Hopefully, practicing gratitude makes us notice our achievements, empowers us to future success, helps us manage anxiety, and increases our positive emotions and overall health.
I’m a Project Manager with a deep passion for both professional and personal growth. Designing and building the next generation of vehicles is incredibly rewarding, but it comes with its challenges—especially for someone as emotionally invested as I am!