The return on thankfulness

Published 2:00 pm Thursday, November 21, 2019

“Gratitude is the best medicine. It heals your mind, your body and your spirit. And attracts more things to be grateful for.”

It is said that thankfulness may consist merely of words, but gratitude is shown in acts. Gratitude fulfills thankfulness.

This a time of year when most of us practice thankfulness. We are thankful for our friends, family, great food and an extra day off from work.

If we dig deeper, we can be thankful that the pilgrims left England to pursue religious freedom. Their great risk provided us with the freedoms we enjoy today.

But what if there was a business case for thankfulness? What if thankfulness, which leads to happiness, is a competitive advantage at work?

That is the case that many positive psychologists are making with some great evidence to back up their claims.

Shawn Achor’s research has shown that happiness raises every business and educational outcome. His research shows that increased happiness at work raises:

• Sales by 37%.

• Productivity by 31%.

• Accuracy by 19%.

It also creates a myriad of health and quality of life improvements.

Early in his career, Shawn wanted a tough test subject to prove his theories so he selected the auditing and tax firm KPMG – during tax season.

January through April is the most stressful time for tax managers (just ask my wife). Shawn put half the KPMG managers through a three-hour introduction to positive psychology and how to apply the principles at work.

He then evaluated all the managers three times – before the training, a week after the training, and four months later (after tax season). He used a battery of standard metrics including life satisfaction measures, perceived stress, social support, perceived effectiveness at work and optimism.

Every single positive metric improved significantly at the first test – one week after training. The real question was whether the improvements would hold after the grind of tax season.

The positive effect was still there after tax season. Most importantly, the manager’s life satisfaction scores (which indicated personal and professional happiness) were much higher at the end of tax season when compared to the scores before receiving the training.

A mere three-hour training and a non-mandatory invitation to create a positive habit for 21 days created a high ROI in the short and long term.

How can you get some of this happiness mojo in your life (and maybe your company)? Below are the five suggestions given to the KPMG managers that caused the positive changes.

Every day, write down three new things you are grateful for that occurred in the past 24 hours;

Write for two minutes a day describing one positive experience you had over the past 24 hours;

Exercise for 10 minutes a day;

Meditate for two minutes a day, focusing on your breath going in and out;

Write one, quick email first thing in the morning thanking or praising a member on your team.

If you want extra happiness, productivity and success try adding these items to your routine:

Set an alarm on your phone that reminds you to be thankful or pray (or both) 6 times per day. It only takes a few seconds to remind yourself of something positive that recently happened and to be thankful for it.

Consume less information. Embrace silence and fill that void with gratitude and prayer. Turn off the radio, the news, podcast or audiobook.

Choose a better reality. Our happiness is not based on what happens to us, but how we perceive what happened.

Embrace the process. Trust the outcomes will be good – when they come. Don’t be disappointed because the outcomes are not here yet.

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis that sounds as if the guy was a positive psychology researcher.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own” or “real” life. The truth is that what one calls interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.”

As next week is Thanksgiving week, let’s go beyond being thankful for just this season. Let’s make happiness a habit.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to write in this great paper every week and to you for reading it.

From my family to yours, we hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving!

If you are ready to get started creating more meaning (and happiness) in your organization, check out our free resources at https://valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library.