With Thanksgiving being right around the corner, people tend to express what they are thankful for in different ways, whether it is their significant other, family, friends, colleagues, pets, job, home, or something more grand like life itself. Rather than asking you (my loyal audience) “what are you thankful for”, I ask the following: what are doing actively and intentionally to demonstrate your gratitude for the people and things that you are thankful for? Talk is cheap if there is no proverbial “walk” to back it up. I think there are a lot of ways to express gratitude and appreciation for other people and things in life, both in big and small ways On my end, a few things that I am consciously and actively doing to show gratitude and savor the good in life are: (1) Getting involved with at least one organization where I can volunteer my time and energy to help others in need – This is in progress and has admittedly taken longer than I had hoped, but I think that I will have this in good order by year’s end; (2) Making time each day for my significant other, friends, and family even if it is just a phone call, text, spending some quality time together, etc., and I track this daily/weekly in my notebooks and whiteboard to assess if I am actually doing these things. At present, I travel back home to the Midwest at least once a quarter, plan a couple friends trips each year, and make time for family calls each week; and (3) I am incrementally improving to make the most of my time and appreciating it at the same time – this is probably one of the greatest challenges that I face each day and week, and it’s a real battle some days, but I am staying on it by striving to ruthlessly prioritize what I want to accomplish each day and remember to enjoy the ride wherever it is going. Time is short - make the most of it.
Agreed Brett. Feelings are important, and actions can both precede and display feelings. For Mercovus, I always send our annual thank you gifts personally, because I want to make sure I really tap into the feeling of gratitude. A new one I came up with this year for my personal life is leaving my wife little notes around the house telling her what I love about her. You can steal that if you want!
Very nice Brett Bunnell - on getting involved with at least one organization - don't think ... just do it. If you don't have any ideas, reach out and I can suggest a few 🙂.
Thanks for the post Brett. Agreeing with Eric's comment below, handwritten notes work wonders! Curious: what Organization were you hoping to get involved with?
Beautiful post. Gets us all thinking!
Financial Professional at Equitable Advisors
11moBrett – love the point on consciously making time for family and friends. Family - I go over to my sister’s house to see her, my brother-in-law, niece and nephew just about every Saturday night as they live in SF and I’m always there for them when they need school pickups or babysitting. I also see my Mom - who lives right down the street from me - two or three times a week and I’m always a helping hand to her – mostly with her finances – since she is 80. Friends – Every day I write one friend to schedule a time to get together, so this leads to an active social life.