Newsletter
Gratitude and Motivation2024-11-25
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
—Melody Beattie
As we come upon Thanksgiving, we should all make a renewed commitment to being grateful for things, big and small. It is one of the surefire ways to be happier.
Does being grateful for things dull your competitive edge? Do you become more complacent? Not necessarily. Gratitude is underlined more by serotonin, and motivation by dopamine. A simple way to look at that is a 2 x 2 matrix between Gratitude and Motivation:
- High Gratitude-High Motivation individuals Happily Achieve. This is the best quadrant to be in.
- Low Gratitude-High Motivation individuals Achieve.
- High Gratitude- Low Motivation individuals are Happy.
- Low Gratitude-Low Motivation individuals Unhappily Fail. You want to get out of this quadrant as soon as possible, using whatever bio-socio-psychological measures and treatments necessary. Get unstuck, get moving. Usually by giving something first, taking some positive action.
Saying Thank you! for the things in your life, and Thank you! to others, as often as possible, are good things to do. Not only at Thanksgiving, but year-round.