Mastering the Art of Appreciation
Tonight I’ve been reading an email from Jack Canfield, and I want to share it with you. He started off with a quote from Mother Teresa:
“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”
And then he went on to talk about studies done on why people left their jobs. Among other things, 88% felt that they were not appreciated for the work they did.
I expect that if we dug into divorce statistics we’d find much the same thing – people feeling unappreciated and thus unloved.
All of us know the warm glow we get when someone offers a genuine thanks or voices appreciation for something we’ve done or said. So why don’t we return the favor more often?
Jack said that a few years back he decided he was going to teach himself to make it a habit. He put a file card in his pocket and each time he voiced appreciation to someone he put a check mark on the card. If he didn’t have 10 by the end of the day he took the time to send an email or write a note to people he appreciated. It took him about 6 months to turn it into a habit so he no longer needed the file card.
Wow. What a lot of joy he spreads!
There’s also a self-serving reason for making appreciation a daily habit. If you’ve read “The Secret” you know that one of the things they teach is to wake up each morning and give thanks for the good things in your life. That activates the Law of Attraction to bring more good things.
No, there are 2 self-serving reasons. When you see how pleased someone looks when you acknowledge their value, it feels pretty darn good.
Anyway, Jack’s message really got me to thinking about people in my life that I’ve never thanked. So I just got out the phone book to see if my High School Journalism teacher was still around. According to the book, she is. Now I just need to find her address so I can write and tell her how much I enjoyed having her for a teacher – and how much my kids liked her when they got to high school and were in her class.
Hmmm… I wonder if it was her influence that turned me into a copywriter? She did make writing fun.
Better go look for that address… I hope you think of someone special now and go thank them!
Marte
Posted: September 11th, 2008 under attitude, communication, law of attraction.