What’s Missing When We Think About Gratitude
Photo by Amadeo Valar on Unsplash
The month of November is one of my favorites. The weather is cooler, kids are settled into school, and there’s a calm before the holiday hustle and bustle. Some organizations close out their fiscal year and some are wrapping up their last quarter. There is a shift as we anticipate the beginning of a new year approaching. I feel this is a time of opportunity for us.
The opportunity is to focus on gratitude — something we do automatically during Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving. However, given the natural transition from one calendar year to the next, this is also a great time to review the year. Organizations do this to understand what got accomplished, what was a success, and where is there room to improve. This is important to the health of any company in making goals for the coming year.
Here’s what I think is missing:
How many organizations evaluate what they are grateful for in the outcomes they identify? Every outcome, whether positive or negative, is an opportunity to learn. It is a gift, either in the reward or the lesson. If we aren’t paying attention, it can easily slip by us.
This is my request:
Review your year using your calendar.
Write down your wins and disappointments.
Acknowledge the gratitude for the wins.
Identify what you learned from the disappointments, and be grateful for the awareness.
here’s a more challenging request:
Write down a quality, action or behavior about yourself for which you can be grateful.
Write down a quality, action or behavior about someone you admire.
Write down a quality, action or behavior about someone who challenges you.
Pay attention to how you feel when you complete these exercises. There will always be challenging people and situations. How we perceive these people and situations will affect our experience. What experience are you choosing?
When you live from gratitude, it’s easier to act with integrity.
Integrity means doing the right thing, telling the truth and owning mistakes. This is the first fundamental we address in a series of twenty-six that define the culture at Momentum Consulting. We focus on one fundamental a week, which keeps us growing and present, and most of all, helps us focus on being better humans every day. And when we muster some gratitude for our mistakes, we get more comfortable owning them.
We would love for you to come along and learn about our fundamentals. Hopefully, it will inspire you to create behaviors you want to live by and support your organization in building them too. We are happy to partner with you in your process. Do your gratitude homework, and let us know what you experience.
Until then, we are grateful for you!
Fundamental #1: ACT WITH INTEGRITY
Demonstrate doing the right thing in all your actions and all your decisions, especially when no one is looking. Always tell the truth. Acknowledge and own your mistakes, clean them up and make appropriate corrections.
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