The Benefits of Developing a Grateful Mindset

November is such a natural month to practice gratitude, to share our appreciation with each other, and to set the tone for the holiday season ahead wherever one is in the world. We even had World Kindness Day this month offering another opportunity to pay it forward with random acts of kindness. At TTEC, we’ve been sharing some amazing gratitude with each other this month on the new Gratitude noticeboard on the Ethics & Integrity Management Mosaic space. If you’re already a part of the TTEC team, there’s still time to share your gratitude with a colleague or team on this Space!

You may recall we also started a deeper gratitude practice with various teams at TTEC. As promised, here’s the follow up with observations from Heather Lawrence’s team on their experience with the Gratitude Project.  Ready for some beneficial insight to try the same exercises with your teams (and your family and friends would benefit from this too!)?  Just a heads up, the feedback below is paraphrased and is in no particular order:

Team Member #1:  
Felt that she and her team were generally a grateful and supportive bunch.  Was interested in the project from a more personal level.  She used the concepts of gratitude to remind herself of the good in the current, challenging environment.  

Team Member #2:  
Already interested in practicing gratitude, so it was a good fit.  Found it helpful to step back and reflect.  Though she practiced expressing gratitude with friends, it felt good with coworkers.  She also felt like she was more cognizant of her team members’ contributions and appreciated them more.  Thinks that it would be even more interesting once back in the office.

Team Member #3:
This team member thought the exercise was well-timed, hopes it continues and will continue to gain momentum.  She would reach out to others thanking them for flexibility with their schedules to accommodate a business need.  The responses were overall positive, and sometimes mentioned that the receiver had never heard that, or that they were grateful because they were having a bad day.  It felt good to reflect on the exercise at the end of the day and take a moment to think about the good that happened, as opposed to how busy she was, or the negative.  Had not done something like this in the past, it was a good way to connect the team.

Team Member #4:
This team member was not sure how to approach the project at first.  Deciding to approach random colleagues and tell them “thank you.”  Received great feedback such as “I never hear this kind of thing.”  It made me think “Why don’t I do this more often?”  As a final thought: “If you’re looking for good, you’re going to find it.”

Team Member #5:
With a million meetings every day, and that we are always focusing on what’s next and not taking the time to reflect on much else, the project helped grab her attention.  Even though people say they don’t want affirmation, they do.  So, if you’re thinking “who am I to tell people that I’m thankful,” just do it because we all like to be validated.  The exercise helped stave off negative self-talk and to start it, I locked in on great jobs that made my life easier, nothing too long or fancy.  

Great takeaways right? There’s a lot of nuggets in here that you may consider for practicing gratitude in your own life whether it’s at work or at home. You can also check out this blog from PositivePsychology.com featuring the top TEDTalks on the subject. I may be biased, but I think that each member of the team had a positive outcome from practicing a little gratitude.  And I am grateful to each of them for their participation in this gratitude project. Ready? It’s your turn to pay it forward!