Why Gratitude Is Good For Your Career — Five Tips to Bring More Success To Your Life Starting Today

When my clients “get out of their own way” and increase their ability to be grateful, they experience immediate noticeable increases in positive energy and in feeling “life is good”. This feeling fuels a rapid turnaround in the flow of their revenue and career effectiveness.Focusing on what you haven’t yet accomplished and what you don’t have diverts your attention from what you do have and what you have accomplished. It keeps you caught up ‘in your head’, (often with unconstructive or stress-inducing thoughts, such as ‘why isn’t it happening the way I want”, “how long is it going to take til I have what I want” etc.) and experiencing stress sensations in your body (e.g., tension in shoulders, pit in stomach).

In contrast, being grateful is an attitude that ‘comes from your heart’, enabling a warm, uplifting, energizing feeling within your body.Scientific research results encourage a practice of gratitude and strong feelings from your heart. Many studies have shown that the strength of a person’s electromagnetic field is determined by what feeling state they are in, even if the feeling lasts only a few seconds in duration. Feelings of self doubt (shame, guilt, fear) calibrate at strength levels between 20-100 whereas a person in a state of acceptance, love, and gratitude calibrates between 350 and 500 (D. Hawkins, Power vs. Force, 2002)

The implication, for those of you who subscribe to notions outlined in “The Secret”, is that states of gratitude literally create thoughts with a ‘higher vibrational frequency’ which therefore attract people and new business that are at a similar level of frequency. Further, the heart’s electrical field is 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain – it’s the most powerful field produced by the human bodySincere positive feeling states can improve your cognitive performance and mental clarity. And, the electromagnetic field created by your heart can synchronize the brain waves of people around you up to several feet away (the implication - try working an attitude of gratitude into your sales techniques!)

Why it can be hard to be grateful

If it is hard for you to feel grateful much of the time even though you know you “should” more often, here’s why: (In the absence of unfortunate out-of-your-control experiences such as tragedies and non-preventable health conditions), many of the career related emotional and financial struggles you experience are at root self imposed. They stem from a core doubt you have about yourself, which pressures you to achieve external markers that will enable you to finally prove that you are ‘enough’ and disprove you are ‘not enough’. These pressures to succeed cause you to stress yourself out overworking yourself (usually inefficiently) to prove you ‘have what it takes.’ Self doubts also set you up to limit your success by procrastinating/avoiding putting yourself out there, which you do in order to ensure that you won’t erode whatever respect you have gained from other people.

These pressures to succeed cause you to stress yourself out overworking yourself (usually inefficiently) to prove you ‘have what it takes.’ Self doubts also set you up to limit your success by procrastinating/avoiding putting yourself out there, which you do in order to ensure that you won’t erode whatever respect you have gained from other people. In short, trying to prove yourself (to yourself and to others) keeps you focused on what you haven’t yet accomplished and on “I have so much to do”.

Constantly measuring yourself keeps you “in your head” and focuses attention on the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. This focus demoralizes you and maintains your doubts about whether success is possible. Your doubt prevents feeling deserving. When you don’t appreciate yourself, you can’t appreciate what you have.

Tips to become more grateful

If you notice you are focused more ‘on the gap’ and are ready to practice more gratitude, here are some tips:

1. Either Accept or Accomplish

Don’t allow yourself to keep falling short of who you want to be. Either adjust your expectations for your career and life so you can truly enjoy all you have now. Or, make a specific game plan for how you will build your core competencies and grow your career according to your hopes – in other words, finally apply yourself and Accomplish what will finally bring you self acceptance. Make a conscious decision to Accept or Accomplish for each dissatisfying aspect of your career and life. As you make progress on either of these initiatives, be grateful for the progress you make along the way so you keep yourself energized to keep going!

2. Find one, if not multiple “actions”, “touchstones” or “rituals” that remind you to be grateful.

Some ideas include:

  • reviewing the things you have to be grateful for at bedtime;
  • remembering to think about certain people (e.g., your family, children) and be grateful for their presence, love, and health, etc. Notice what they do for you and what you love doing for them.
  • recall a spiritual perspective or ritual you have been taught
  • put your hands on your heart and give thanks to whatever notions you subscribe to about a Creator
  • appreciate yourself for your accomplishments and the focus and attention you put into making professional and personal contributions each day.

3. (I will pardon myself only this one time for being a guilt-inducing Jewish mother, but here goes) All any of us need to do is immediately call to mind the obvious, that ¾ of the world who lives in conditions with no clean water or shelter or freedoms.

An AIDS orphan in South Africa; A refugee in Darfur; survivors of Katrina, Malibu fires, and countless other natural disasters. You are overlooking so many opportunities to be grateful each day, from appreciating that your faucet, your central heat, your cellphone, your transportation work reliably each day; you and most people you know are probably privileged with relatively good health; you can think and say what you want, and love who you love (though your government may not recognize your relationship rights); you live in a society with myriad opportunities for generating wealth, etc. I know this sounds hokey, but now whenever I’m caught in a bad traffic jam or have difficult career situations, I am ‘grateful’ that these are the nature of the problems I have compared to the problems I could be having.

4. Hang out with people who are grateful.

Remember that the electromagnetic signals of our hearts are far more powerful than those sent out from our brains. Hang out with people whose heartwaves have the ability to overpower your brainwaves!

5. Identify what you love to do in work and leisure, and put your time, energy, and attention into it.

For those of you who have heard me speak, this is a central part of the “Direct Path”. Then you will be ‘living from your heart’ and feel so grateful that you get to spend your time developing your own core competencies and being rewarded for the things you love best to do.