Practising thankfulness & giving at work

Making gratitude part of your day-to-day work life has practical short- and long-term benefits.
Practising thankfulness & giving at work
By
Sharne McDonald

I wrote a piece on gratitude at work not too long ago that I’m pretty proud of. I thought it would be cool to do a follow-up with some more insights, especially in lieu of the end-of-year holidays and sales a-happening all around at this time of the year 🦃🛍️🎄

👀 Did you know that holiday time is one of the most anxious times of the year?

Making thankfulness part of your daily routine will not only provide you with a better quality of life in the long run, but will also help you to cope with the upcoming downtime this season.

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Short-term benefits of giving

Motivation

Being thankful and generous has been proven to increase positivity and motivation, which improves your productivity and engagement at work. This means that focusing on being thankful and giving to others will actually help you cope with your workload.

“Besides the positive effects gratefulness has on the brain, it’s proven to improve your mental health.”

Stress management

Thankfulness plays a crucial role in helping you to keep things in perspective, feel good about yourself and your choices, as well as curbing negativity. When you’re giving emotionally to your loved ones and co-workers, it improves your relationships and how you feel about them.

Gratitude helps you manage stress by maintaining a healthy balance.

Sleep & Exercise

Especially during these last few weeks of the year where the “end-of-year slump” hits really hard, you should prioritise getting 7 hours of sleep every night and put 30 minutes aside each day to do something active 💪 Grateful people tend to sleep better and are more motivated to exercise, which leads to healthier routines and fewer sick days.

Bad sleep leads to mood swings, poor performance and may even lead to brain deterioration.

Long-term benefits of giving

Self-esteem

Because thankfulness and giving keeps things in perspective and helps you focus on the positive, the long-term effect is that it produces a healthy self-image. When you give, you show up as the best version of yourself, which changes the way people see you and makes you more likeable.

Gratitude helps to keep depression and suicidal thoughts in check.

Recovery

In the long term, a grateful and giving lifestyle can help you overcome addictions and other negative behavioural patterns, such as alcohol and drug misuse, anxiety and depression. The reason for this is that thankfulness helps you to make peace with the weaknesses that you can’t change, while building on your strengths and areas of improvement.

Gratitude facilitates personal development and emotional healing.

Meaningful work

Being happier and more hopeful about your work means you’re more likely to find fulfilment in your career. Celebrating achievements is another way to practice thankfulness at work, by sharing recognition and appreciation for others’ and your own successes.

“It’s a whole lot easier for our brains to focus on the perceived failures in our lives. We can change that cycle by choosing to focus on our successes.”

Leadership

Yes, it’s true, a giving attitude will eventually make a better leader out of you. Why do we say that? Effective management involves many touch points with employees to make sure they’re onboarded well, guided throughout their careers, personally and professionally developed, appreciated and engaged at work. If you’re not sure where to start with expressing gratitude at work, leading others will be pretty difficult.

Every employee wants to know that they are seen and appreciated for the work they do.

Practicing thankfulness and giving has many positive effects on your personal life and at work. From helping you to cope with the busy festive season ahead, to improving your work habits and eventually leading to a greater quality of life, gratitude and showing appreciation is proven to lead to a happier, more productive you.