How to Express Gratitude When You Feel Ungrateful
Ingratitude is breathing through a narrow straw while running a marathon.
Definition:
Gratitude is noticing and acknowledging benefit or advantage.
Feeling grateful isn’t part of my definition of gratitude.
We live one of two ways. We either feel our way into acting or we act our way into feeling. A feeling-based life is unpredictable and dissatisfying.
Successful leaders choose the right thing even when they don’t feel like it.
“… our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than the fine emotions we feel.” Elias Magoon
Reason:
Why express gratitude when you don’t feel grateful?
- Expressing gratitude aligns with reality. There is benefit or advantage in every situation if you are willing to learn, grow, and serve.
- Leaders live with an others-outlook. Expressing gratitude is good for others. (See ‘Gratitude motivates,’ below.)
- Feelings follow action. A commitment to ingratitude might block feelings of ingratitude, but consistent expressions of gratitude usually produce feelings of gratitude.
- Expressing gratitude requires a shift in focus from ‘don’t have’ to ‘do have’ and from ugly to beauty. You can’t lead from a ‘don’t have’ position.
Illustration:
Gratitude motivates.
Managers who remember to say “thank you” to people who work for them may find that those employees feel motivated to work harder. Researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania randomly divided university fund-raisers into two groups.
One group made phone calls to solicit alumni donations in the same way they always had.
The second group — assigned to work on a different day — received a pep talk from the director of annual giving, who told the fund-raisers she was grateful for their efforts.
During the following week, the university employees who heard her message of gratitude made 50% more fund-raising calls than those who did not.
“No duty is more urgent than giving thanks.” James Allen
Today’s challenge: Show up giving thanks.
Inauthenticity is a killer of trust. The moment someone realizes you don’t feel it, you lose their trust going forward. Faking it doesn’t make it.
Find your reason, and feel it. Passion rules, and leads. IMHO.
Thanks Rurbane. Your first statement is absolutely true. However, I leave room for my aspirational self in the pursuit of authenticity. I aspire to feel gratitude even when I feel ingratitude.
I also agree that faking it doesn’t make it.
Perhaps our greatest difference is the idea that feeling is reality. Sometimes I feel it. Sometimes I don’t. But the reality is, I’m a constant recipient of benefit and advantage, even if I don’t feel like I am.
As always, thank you for your contributions. Respectfully
We can be grateful for what we learn even if we are not grateful for the teacher.
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.” ~ Khalil Gibran
Thanks Duane. Learning gratitude in difficulty is a powerful lesson. Thanks for sharing a useful technique.
I don’t think we can be thankful FOR everything. But we can be thankful IN everything, if, for example, we practice what you shared.
Gratitude and kindness are super powers today and rare. In both cases they come with making an intentional decisions regardless of circumstances. It’s a muscle that has to be worked by me with focus and yet has great dividends.
Thanks Rick. I find the idea that gratitude is a muscle useful. Gotta do my exercies.
A previous comment speaks of inauthenticity. I kind of reject that persons’ objection. You don’t have to FEEL grateful in order to express gratitude. We are taught as little children to say “thank you.” I don’t believe that I was ever taught to feel grateful in those situations. You say “thank you” because it’s polite and because you have benefitted from something someone said or did.
Someone holds the elevator for me. Do I have to stop to FEEL gratitude for that action before I express my thanks to that person? My thanks will be automatic and then the real feeling of gratitude happens when I stand there realizing that I really am grateful I didn’t have to wait for the next elevator.
Waiting to express gratitude until you actually feel grateful is kind of wrong. It discounts other’s contributions and focuses, even if in your own mind, on yourself rather than on the action of others. Saying thank you or expressing thanks will lead to feeling grateful. It allows us to think about what has been done. There is no faking gratitude. Shame on anyone for feeling like expressing thanks is somehow inauthentic. Saying “thank you” is part of polite society and a custom that I’m not willing to abandon; even in this day and age of “expressing your truth.”
Your comment is spot on in re manners, they are civilizing.
But what’s wrong with feeling grateful for good manners or kind acts?
Nothing is wrong with feeling grateful. I just don’t think that the expression of gratitude should be delayed until one actually feels grateful. Sometimes it takes a while for that particular feeling to actually surface.
Perhaps the resolution to our confuzzlement is to be (grateful) in the moment,
If you notice good, express good.
If you feel good, share good.
If you believe good, express that.
Gratitude/kindness is a virus as much as anger/irritation is. Manners are merely a vehicle; one can drive poorly or one can be eloquent in their course corrections.
Thanks Elizabeth. Bringing up good manners is a useful part of the conversation. Good manners are, generally speaking, automatic actions that we don’t think that much about. But I think they do matter. Common courtesy greases the machine.
It’s true that these things can be used to manipulate. I wouldn’t encourage that. But another persons abuse of a good thing is no reason to forsake using it.
I am with you Dan. There is a plethora of science validating the benefits of practising gratitude. If anything, it forces (or allows) one to see a different perspective. Great little thought provoke.
cheers
Adrian