Have you broken your New Year’s Resolution yet? In 2013 Laila Powers, a Human Resources Director with Atlas Oil in Taylor, Michigan has been focused on making a choice: she decided to be more joyful and appreciate those around her. Since setting this goal for 2013 Laila shares, “This is tough. I have to be careful and make sure it does not become a chore…that would zap the joy and defeat the whole purpose.” Although making a conscious effort to see the joy in every situation may present challenges, Laila has found it is worth it in the end. Laila has found, “Showing appreciation and thanking those around me for the simple thing builds our relationship and helps us focus on the positive.”
This new habit is one of the simplest steps you can take to boost happiness and many people are catching on. In a new national survey of more than 2,000 adults conducted for the John Templeton Foundation, 64% of participants said they express gratitude because it makes them feel good. In fact, feeling grateful and expressing it decreases stress, increases happiness and makes people feel better about life in general.
To take this a step further, people who document what they are thankful for reap a host of health and emotional benefits. You may want to get started with these tips from Robert Emmons, PH.D. adapted from UC Berkeley’s Great Good website: www.greatergood.berkeley.edu
- Commit to Happiness – Journaling is more effective if you first make the conscious decision to become more fulfilled and more grateful, research suggests. “Motivation to become happier plays a role.” Emmons explains.
- Go for Depth Over Breadth – Elaborating about a particular thing you are grateful for with more detail versus listing many things.
- Make It Personal – Focus on people, not things. You may also try subtraction, not just addition: Reflect on what your life of work would be like without a certain blessing rather than just tallying up the good stuff.
- Savor Surprises – Record events that were unexpected or surprising. These tend to produce stronger levels of gratitude.
Sure this may sound like a good idea, be more personally grateful, but how does it apply to organizations? The Gallup Q12 is a survey that measures employee engagement. It is widely regarded as the Gold Standard for measuring how engaged employees are in their organization. One of the 12 questions the survey uses to measure engagement is “In the last week someone has thanked me for doing a good job”.
I experienced the power of these two little words first hand rather early in my career. I was 23 years old, pretty fresh out of graduate school, working in a pretty tough manufacturing environment. To be honest, I knew many of the people in the plant did not take me seriously. There was Jake, a 25 year veteran to the plant who handled maintenance. One day he had solved a problem on the production line that made a big difference to the operation. In the break room, I saw Jake getting a cup of coffee. I decided to approach him and told him how impressed I was with how he solved the problem. I shared with Jake that what he did was going to make the work go so much better for the team and I thanked him for the time he spent on it.
Well, I did not expect the reaction I got from him. I am sure he was glad we were the only two people in the break room, because I watched in amazement as his eyes welled up with moisture. He told me I was the first person to say “thank you” for his hard work in over 10 years. Imagine that? No one word of appreciation he can recall for a decade! I wondered how does this happen? Well, Jake became an ally of mine and a huge supporter. When I was trying to get some tough changes made in the plant, he served as a tremendous advocate. This all started because of two little words. THANK YOU. So you might want to try it. What have you got to lose? It may boost your outlook, health and relationships. That’s a resolution worth keeping.
Author: Alex Rozema