Grazie – Tak – Merci – Dank je – Spasibo – Danke – Gracias – Thank you

Moments of gratitude – throughout the year or especially at Thanksgiving in the USA or at the end of the year in Switzerland – are doing good things for us. What self-help books call “practising gratitude” is described as “counting your blessings” by the English. It refers to the attitude of focusing on what is there, on what is going well. This does not mean denying or ignoring the difficulties. But gratitude for the good things creates the energy and confidence to deal with life’s challenges, too. Research about resilience and happiness has investigated the effect of gratitude, with some exciting insights.

Gratitude prolongs life expectancy, as it has been proven to reduce the risk of death by around 9%.

Studies by Harvard University confirm that we will live longer if we are grateful because it improves the activity of the amygdala – our emotional processing centre – which reduces perceived stress. As a result, we are less often afraid, feel less anger and suffer less from depression. We are perceived as more cooperative, more social and more positive, which strengthens our network of relationships and gives us emotional support in difficult moments. These are sufficient reasons to make gratitude part of our individual resilience and become more robust in dealing with difficulties.

Better done than said! Thank you very much.

I say thank you for reading the newsletters and immersing yourself in my thoughts on personnel and organisational development. I would like to say a special thank you to those of you with whom I had the opportunity to work during this year and who gave me the possibility to live through exciting workshops and fulfilling coaching moments. I would also like to thank all the people around me who see me for who I am and give me the space to be myself. And somehow, I also thank myself for being with me each day and for trying to be as kind to myself as possible.

Would you like to be more grateful and live longer as a result yourself?

The following three gratitude rituals are my personal recommendations:

Writing gratitude Post-it notes

Place a pad of Post-it notes and a pen somewhere you find yourself often enough and write down regularly what you are grateful for. Stick the Post-it notes on a wall so that you remember the good things and enjoy them when you walk past. Alternatively, you can use normal pieces of paper, fold them up and put them in a gratitude jar. At regular intervals or when you are feeling down, reach into the gratitude jar, read a few of the notes and remind yourself of the good things in your life.

Saying thank you to yourself

Whether it is when you get up in the morning, during the day or in the evening when you are brushing your teeth: thank yourself. You can say thank you for something specific or simply for the fact that you exist. If you combine this thank you with a friendly smile, the moment will feel even more intense.

Saying thank you to your dark sides

We do not like everything about ourselves which is normal and human. By saying thank you to these dark sides of ourselves, we integrate them into what we are and accept that they exist. This usually creates a feeling of relaxation and greater freedom in dealing with these aspects. If we also feel courageous enough to ask ourselves what we would lose if these dark sides no longer existed, we recognise the potential behind these aspects and become even more comfortable with them.