As the co-founders of an organization that values a warm and enthusiastic culture, we are always looking for ways to infuse joy into the lives of our staff and clients. Several years ago, we were inspired by our business coach Becky Corbett to adopt a daily gratitude practice as a means of self-care. What we didn’t know at the time was that this practice would not only improve our lives but help us infuse a culture of gratitude among our clients, staff, and in our personal lives as well.
Just like Help in the Home, the process of developing a daily gratitude practice happened organically. For many years, we had intentionally scheduled time on our calendars which we labeled “co-founder check-ins”. We were really benefiting from these check-ins with one another and overtime started being more intentional about expressing gratitude during these calls. About a year ago we started labeling them as “gratitude check-ins” on our calendars as a way to be even more intentional about the purpose of these calls.
The structure of these calls often starts with acknowledging challenges which then allows us to transition into statements of gratitude. Sometimes we’ll even ask each other, “are you in a space to find gratitude?”. The answer isn’t always yes! Some days are just really hard and it might take time for us to get to gratitude. A gratitude practice should not be mistaken for toxic positivity. We give ourselves grace and space to affirm each other when things are tough. However, we almost always find something to be grateful for by the end of the day so if we can’t find gratitude during our normal morning check-ins, we might have a quick call or send a quick text to each other later in the day.
It’s amazing how this seemingly simple practice has changed the way we look at and interact with the world. It has truly impacted our organization on all levels because gratitude is the frame. One of the things that we realized along our journey with this practice is that it actually makes a lot of sense to express gratitude from a neurobiological perspective. Everytime we express gratitude we stimulate the release of dopamine (aka the “feel-good” chemical) in our brains and the brains of others!
We see this benefiting our staff because truly valuing your team members is the groundwork for team work. What we have also found is that gratitude sets the stage for vulnerability. Gratitude creates a safe space for challenges to be acknowledged without defensiveness which allows people to openly express their needs and ask for support. Then there is an amazing ripple effect that transfers to the work our staff are doing with clients, families, and other collaborators outside of the organization. It really is magical to witness how transformative this practice is.
In the most difficult situations, that’s when it’s most important to have gratitude and give voice to it. You are coming into a situation differently with a gratitude mindset. You are entering into what Brené Brown referred to in “Daring Greatly” as the “arena” with the assumption that you and others involved have positive intent. It makes it easier to enter a hard conversation when the other person starts by acknowledging that they are making generous assumptions about the situation. Gratitude helps lower defensiveness and remove walls so we can get to the heart of a challenging situation and come up with viable solutions in a way that doesn’t leave battle scars.
Life before adopting a gratitude practice was a lot more stressful. As business partners and really just as human beings in all of our various roles and identities, gratitude has had such a calming effect because it helps us to focus on what we can control. It’s become one of the most important coping tools in our tool box. If after reading this, you feel inspired to try practicing gratitude more frequently, our unsolicited advice is to be gentle with yourself and reach out to a friend to partner with you in this practice. And don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back for having the intention of creating this as a practice. You’ll THANK us later.
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