With Thanksgiving on the horizon, many of us are looking forward to a bit of a rest. After turkey, pie, and a beer or two, who can resist sprawling out on the couch and dozing off until the big game gets exciting?
While building muscle might be the farthest thing from our minds while we’re in a turkey coma, there’s one muscle that we could be working every day, all year round, to improve our lives and the lives of everyone around us. You don’t even have to get off of the couch to do it!
It’s not a muscle we can point to, like our biceps or our triceps. It’s really more like a habit – the habit of thanks. The practice of acknowledging what we have. An attitude of gratitude.
It sounds silly, but think about it – Thanksgiving is one of the few times we pause to actively say ‘thank you’ to our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and service providers. What if instead of trying to flex those muscles once a year, we did it once a month, once a week, or even once a day?
Experts on well-being suggest moments of gratitude in your day-to-day life can reduce stress, increase energy, and even help you sleep at night! Robert Emmons, a leading expert on the simple art of saying ‘thanks’, says that “Practicing gratitude can increase your happiness by 25%.” And who doesn’t want a second helping of happy?
What if we made it a daily habit to write down a few things we are thankful for? Just like how a regular practice of working out leaves you less winded during the pre-Thanksgiving dinner touch football game, daily gratitude can keep us in good shape, too!
While it may be too late to start lifting real weights in time to get trim by Turkey Day, it’s never too late to lift your hands in thanks. This Thanksgiving, I challenge you to acknowledge gratitude not just at the family table, but in the days beyond. Let’s carry the positive feelings well past Thanksgiving, into the holidays, 2018, and beyond. It’s what I plan to do.
Looking for more ways to build gratitude in your life? Some of my favorite resources can be found here and here. Meanwhile, you should know that I’m grateful for you. Thank you for reading these missives, for commenting and replying when you feel so moved, and for being a valued friend (and perhaps, client) of Matchmaker Logistics.
Happy Thanksgiving from me
and the entire Matchmaker Logistics family,
~Bob
