What Makes You Feel Grateful? - Issue #331 Invincible Career - Claim your power and regain your freedom

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If you’re reading this newsletter, you definitely have some reasons to feel grateful. If nothing else, you have access to the internet and a computer or phone.
I’m sure you probably have many more reasons to feel grateful. But I don’t know you, so I can’t go much beyond those assumptions.
I do too, but I sometimes forget how lucky I am and the many wonderful things I have in my life. I should feel gratitude every minute of every day, but instead, I frequently feel like I’m lacking. I’m disappointed in myself, impatient for results, and always wanting something more.
* I want my business to grow faster.
* I want more subscribers to this newsletter.
* I want more podcast listeners.
* I want more people in my community.
* I want to write more books.
* I want everything to progress more quickly and smoothly.
If you’re ambitious and driven, you tend to focus most on what you don’t have and want to achieve. You get frustrated by the gap between reality and your expectations. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “Woe is me” and “Why can’t my life be like…?” thoughts.
It’s ok to be ambitious, push yourself to achieve more extraordinary things, and want more out of your life and career. But, it becomes a problem if you focus too much on your frustrations and end up whining and complaining (even internally). It’s not healthy to dwell on what you don’t have and lose sight of how much you do have and how lucky you really are.
Things could always be worse. Always. And, many, many people have it way worse than you or I do. We sometimes lose sight of that.
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The Power of Gratitude
“A good life happens when you stop and are grateful for the ordinary moments that so many of us just steamroll over to try to find those extraordinary moments.”— Brené Brown
There is power in the expression of gratitude. Research has shown that feeling grateful is associated with:
* Greater happiness, joy, and optimism
* Better coping skills to defer stress
* Improved progress toward personal goals
* Enhanced self-esteem
* Increased generosity and empathy
* Building and maintaining stronger social relationships
* Better physical health, fewer aches and pains, and deeper sleep
* Higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, attentiveness, determination, and energy
There are plenty of articles and books (my Amazon affiliate link) on the topic of personal gratitude. For example, this article has several excellent suggestions for expressing gratitude, being more mindful, and even a gratitude challenge.
I don’t think I need to tell you how to show your friends and loved ones that you’re grateful. But, I think we sometimes forget to extend this to the people we work with every day and those we encounter in our professional lives.
How to express gratitude professionally
You might be thinking, “Gratitude is gratitude. I already see a lot of expressions of it in the workplace.” But is it really the type of genuine gratitude that leads to the many benefits I listed above? In my decades of professional experience, I haven’t seen that much of it.
Sure, people will give a cursory “Thank you” when you help them or complete a task. Leaders send an email blast to the entire company — right around this time of the year — to tell everyone they appreciate all of their hard work (but also remind y’all that there’s even more hard work ahead). Your boss might even say, “Well done!” when you complete a pr