Gratitude Is a Bridge to Your Positive Future

[David Baxter PhD]

Gratitude Is a Bridge to Your Positive Future
By David J. Pollay, Positive Psychology News Daily
November 2, 2008

Gratitude is a bridge to your positive future: It is your passageway to success.

Think about a bridge crossing a river. It must have strong supporting foundations on both banks. Without the foundations securely anchored, the bridge will collapse; you cannot make the crossing.

And so it is with your bridge to your positive future. The stronger your foundation of gratitude, the greater the distance your bridge can take you in life. And the strength of your gratitude depends on your awareness of the support you have to achieve your best possible life.

Robert Solomon, the late philosophy professor and scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, discussed gratitude in an essay he contributed to The Psychology of Gratitude by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough. Solomon wrote, ?One can take one?s life and its advantages for granted, but how much better it is to acknowledge not only those advantages but one?s gratitude for them.?

Gratitude also likens the emotion of trust, wrote Solomon, ??it involves an admission of our vulnerability and our dependence on other people.? Gratitude helps us recognize the support that we have received on our path to achieve the life we have.

Gratitude provides you with the courage to pursue your ambition in life. Gratitude reminds you of everything that you have; what you remember strengthens your bridge to a positive future. And there are four key ways to reinforce your foundation of gratitude.

A Reminder of Your Key People
First, gratitude reminds you of all the key people in your life. Think of these individuals now. Who are the people who advise you? Who are the people who challenge you? Who are the people who set you straight when you veer off course? And who are the people who give you a hug when you need one? Be grateful for these people; strengthen your bridge.

A Reminder of Your Strengths
Second, gratitude reminds you of your strengths. Think of what comes naturally to you. What do you do well? What do you enjoy doing? What do others say you excel in? What are your gifts? Be grateful for what makes you unique; strengthen your bridge.

A Reminder of Your Achievements
Third, gratitude reminds you of what you have achieved. Think about what you have accomplished in your life. What goals have you met? What successes have you enjoyed? Be grateful for your achievements; strengthen your bridge.

A Reminder of the Wonders Around You
Finally, gratitude reminds you of the wonders around you: the warmth of the sun, the glow of the moon and stars, the current of a river, the ripples of a lake, the waves of an ocean, the comfort of a breeze, the colors of flowers, the majesty of tall trees, the utility of buildings, the speed of planes, and the power of trains. Be grateful for the miracles of nature and the wondrous products of man; strengthen your bridge.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, pastor, and Nazi resister, wrote about gratitude in this way: ?In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.? When you fill your life with gratitude, you will experience the feeling of abundance in your relationships, your strengths, your achievements, and everything that is miraculous and powerful around you.

Gratitude strengthens your bridge to your best possible life. Enjoy the crossing!

David J. Pollay, MAPP, is a syndicated columnist with North Star Writers Group, creator and host of The Happiness Answer^TM television program, an internationally sought after speaker and seminar leader, and the author of Beware of Garbage Trucks! The Law of the Garbage Truck. Mr. Pollay is the founder and president of TheMomentumProject.com, and is the associate executive director of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA).

 

[Sparrow]

I thought the article was very good, short and to the point especially his 4 key ways and the examples he gives on what to think about. I thought his name was familiar... he's the author of The Law of the Garbage Truck, but I never heard of him until recently. He also has a blog site and touches upon
"The Happiness Hypothesis" (Tx. Daniel, I will find that book).
Thank you for posting this David, your title drew me like a magnet!

 

[Daniel E.]

Gratitude: Letting Other People Know They Matter Benefits Us
Psychology Today blog: The Good Life
by Christopher Peterson, PhD

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.
- Lionel Hampton

I talked to a colleague the other day who told me that his 15-year old son had taken our on-line measure of character strengths. The son's top strength was gratitude. My colleague shook his head and said wryly, "We're sure not seeing that."

I might have said that the survey was not working for his son, but instead I said, "Maybe you're not paying enough attention." I wanted to believe that the test was valid in this case, for the sake of my colleague's son as well as my colleague, because our previous research has shown that gratitude is one of the strengths of character most robustly associated with life satisfaction and all the good things that follow from that.

Gratitude is what we call a strength of the heart because it forges an emotional bond between people. To be sure, not everyone expresses gratitude loudly and clearly (like 15-year old boys), but we should listen hard for it, given how precious gratitude is.

A recent study by Jeffrey Froh, Giacomo Bono, and Robert Emmons (2010) clarified what might be going on for adolescents who are grateful, and why this disposition is a beneficial one. Their sample was 700 middle school students, who completed a self-report measure of gratitude at one point in time and measures of life satisfaction and social integration at subsequent points in time.

Results were clear: Consistent with previous research, gratitude led to subsequent life satisfaction, and one of the pathways was increased social integration. So, gratitude indeed bonds us to others.

I'm not sure why, but several years ago, I started to thumbtack the thank-you cards and notes I received on a bulletin board in my office. I call this the Wall of Gratitude. Before, I simply read such cards and notes, smiled, and tossed them in the garbage. How incredibly stupid of me. Displaying them on a bulletin board provides a constant reminder, not that I do good things for people (most of the thank-you notes were for mundane things that are part of my professional role, like writing a letter of recommendation or giving a guest lecture) but rather that people are appreciative. When I am down and troubled, I look at my bulletin board and myself feel grateful that other people are as well. What a wonderful world, and I mean specifically the social world in which we live.

Other people matter. But few of them are mind readers. Let them know that they matter. They might benefit. And you certainly will.

References
Froh, J. J., Bono, G., & Emmons, R. (2010). Being grateful is beyond good manners: Gratitude and motivation to contribute to society among early adolescents. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 144-157.
Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2006). Character strengths and happiness among young children: Content analysis of parental descriptions. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 323-341.
Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 603-619.

 

[Daniel E.]

The Learning Curve of Gratitude : NPR

...Tonight I will cook dinner, tell my husband how much I love him, curl up with the dogs, watch the sun go down over the mountains and climb into bed. I will think about how uncomplicated it all is. I will wonder at how it took me my entire life to appreciate just one day.