Why Gratitude Is Critical To Your Success
As leaders in our work and lives, gratitude can keep us on the right path. It can keep us focused on what truly matters and guide us to the top.
If there is one trait worth cultivating in life, it’s gratitude. Most of us think of gratitude as something that comes after a big win, but it’s so much more important than that.
As we push for greater success in our work and lives, we will face challenges. We will inevitably suffer setbacks. Just as gratitude can help us appreciate our successes, it can help us keep setbacks and failures in perspective.
Here is one of the most important features of gratitude. Gratitude helps block negative emotions that can build up throughout the day, such as envy, regret, and resentment. These emotions can destroy our happiness and bring us down. Gratitude can prevent depression.
As leaders in our work and lives, gratitude can keep us on the right path. It can keep us focused on what truly matters and guide us on our path to the top.
Gratitude can motivate you to be your best.
“If you want to have more, you have to become more. Success is not something you pursue. What you pursue will elude you; it can be like trying to chase butterflies. Success is something you attract by the person you become.”
– Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author and celebrated motivational speaker
At a recent national medical conference during which he spoke and was recognized as the society’s Presidential Honored Athlete, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was asked how he defines greatness and what makes him great.
Brady’s response didn’t include hard work, drive, killer instinct or any of the traits we typically associate with people considered to be the greatest of all time at what they do.
Instead, Brady explained how gratitude makes him great.
Before he steps on the field each Sunday, the six-time Super Bowl winner reminds himself that he is playing not only for the name on the front of his jersey but also the name on the back of it. He thinks about all the people who have supported him during his 30-year sports career — coaches, teammates, doctors, and family.
He takes a moment to tell himself he represents all of those people who have supported him and who continue to support him, who believe in him. Those people encourage him when he isn’t at his best, and they motivate him to perform even better next time.
As he steps on the field in front of 70,000 screaming fans, Tom Brady is grateful for the people who have made his success possible.
No matter how successful you have become in what you do, you did not get there alone.
There have been teachers, managers, professors, mentors, friends, and family who have helped you when you needed it. They have encouraged you when you were struggling and when you were down. They have reminded you to keep pushing forward on your goals.
Always be grateful for these people. Let them inspire you to be a better person.
Gratitude helps you enjoy the process.
“The reward is not always on the scoreboard. What is won is not nearly as important as who we become.”
– Augie Garrido, former Cal State Fullerton Titans and Texas Longhorns baseball coach, who won five College World Series titles
Achieving real success in any field is hard. It requires dedication, commitment, and hard work over a long period of time.
It’s easy to become frustrated at how hard it is to reach our goals and how long it takes. But gratitude can help us enjoy the journey.
Valorie Kondos Field guided the UCLA women’s gymnastics team to seven NCAA national championships over her 29-year career. In her second-to-last year of coaching, her Bruins team entered the national championship competition as underdogs. And while her gymnasts performed well, it did not seem likely that her team would win a seventh title. Heading into their last two events, UCLA had less than a 3% chance of winning.
One of the assistant coaches of her team, Chris Waller, realized that none of the teams were having an exceptional meet. He calculated that if all the UCLA gymnasts scored personal records in their last two events, UCLA could still win the competition.
Waller gave his team a motivational speech for the ages, emphasizing that UCLA’s team were champions and they would fight to the end as champions.
On uneven bars, the UCLA gymnasts hit some of the best routines of their careers. The team averaged the second highest score on uneven bars in NCAA championship history.
They headed to their final event — balance beam — still in fourth place. They would need to average 9.95 to win. Not a single gymnast in the entire competition had hit a 9.95 on beam so far, and UCLA had to average that score.
Miss Val’s athletes were locked in. They competed with confidence, focus, and joy that she had rarely seen in her long, successful coaching career. Despite one fall from 2016 Olympic gold medalist Madison Kocian, whose score the team dropped, her gymnasts scored 9.9375, 9.875, 9.95, and 9.9875 heading into the performance of the final gymnast.
Sixth-year senior Christine “Peng-Peng” Lee needed a near perfect 9.975 for UCLA to win, although no one knew it at the time. ESPN must not have realized that fact either, as their cameras focused on the Oklahoma team preparing to celebrate its third straight national championship.
Peng walked up to Miss Val seconds before her performance. “Miss Val, this is my last routine ever. I’m going to enjoy every moment of it.” She did enjoy it, even looking around the arena during her performance. After her landing, fans and members of every team shouted “10, 10, 10,” and she got that perfect score.
The Bruins gymnasts, and Miss Val herself, cried uncontrollably, not because of the scores, but because they gave the best performances they could have. During those last two events, the team lived in the moment, competed knowing it would be the last time they would be together. They performed with love and gratitude, and they walked out as national champions.
Sometimes we are so focused on the outcome that we failed to enjoy the journey. Remembering why we do what we do, being grateful for the opportunity, could help us enjoy the process and enjoy the struggles.
Gratitude keeps us appreciative of all we have and all that we accomplish, regardless of the result.
Gratitude helps you keep setbacks in perspective.
“You have to ‘Be’ the right kind of person first, then you must ‘Do’ the right things before you can expect to ‘Have.’”
– Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and legendary motivational speaker
Before winning a Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts, Tony Dungy was head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was successful with the Bucs, taking them to the NFC Championship Game before being fired by the Glazers, the owners of the team, in 2001.
Instead of being angry at losing his job, Dungy remained grateful to the Glazers. He remembered that they gave him his first opportunity to be a head coach in the NFL, a chance no one else gave him. He was grateful that God put him in the position to be a football coach in the first place. Rather than being upset, he filled his heart with gratitude.
He soon got the head coaching position in Indianapolis. Five years later, he won Super Bowl XLI, becoming the first African American head coach to win the Super Bowl.
If you face challenges in your day-to-day pursuit of ambitious goals, gratitude can help you through some of the obstacles that inevitably arise. Find some way to include gratitude in your life every day.
Write down three people or things you’re grateful for every morning. Each time you open a door or enter a different room at your job, remind yourself that you’re grateful for your job and for your coworkers, that you’re grateful to help your customers. Carry a special object in your pocket, and think of something you’re grateful for every time you touch it.
Focusing on gratitude will help you through the struggles we face every day. Those thoughts will lift your spirits and fill you with positive energy.
Gratitude helps you appreciate your successes.
“People are generally very kind to me. And I consider those people to be my customers, the people who are supporting my life not just financially, but they’re supporting my artistic life and I’m grateful to them.”
– Harrison Ford, actor and star of multiple blockbuster movies that grossed over $5 billion.
Alex Honnold was the first person to ever perform a free solo climb of El Capitan. This is a 7,569-foot-tall rock formation in Yosemite National Park, and Honnold scaled it with no ropes, no harness, and no way to avoid certain death should he slip.
Honnold trained for years, improving his skills and learning every foothold and handhold on every pitch of El Cap. A film crew documented his journey, showing his daily training.
In the blockbuster documentary Free Solo, viewers see the people who helped and guided Honnold. We see Alex’s girlfriend Sanni, who supported his dream even though she was scared it would take him away from her.
On that incredible climb up the 7,500-foot rock, as Alex ascends the final pitch, he didn’t think of his personal greatness or the accomplishment of being the first climber to ever do what he had just done.
Alex thought of everyone who had helped him along the way. He wanted to celebrate and share his ascent with them. He savored the moment, filled with gratitude for the partners and friends who helped him achieve a lifelong dream.
You have many reasons to be grateful.
No matter where you are in your work and life — in school, just starting a new job, putting in long hours to earn a promotion, leading a company at the top of its industry — you have reasons to be grateful.
Maybe it’s gratitude for people who have helped you get to where you are now. Maybe it’s gratitude for getting the opportunity to do what you do. Maybe it’s gratitude for the challenges and setbacks that will make you stronger.
Find ways to make gratitude a daily part of your life. It will help you succeed in every way, and truly enjoy that success.
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