[This post is the fourth in a series about how to recover from the setbacks we all face in sales. For the first of the series, click here.]
No matter how bad things may seem at the moment, they could always be much worse.
That’s not pessimism. Pessimists expect the worst.
If you imagine something worse than you’ve experienced, it’s easy to be grateful it hasn’t happened and probably won’t.
This can be reassuring. You don’t feel like the powerless victim of an unfair cosmic conspiracy. You feel more like a lucky person who’s been given a much better chance than most.
Maybe you’re inclined to direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. If it’s hard to imagine how much worse things could be, you don’t have to search far for ideas.
Pick up almost any book of medical, social or military history. You’ll quickly see how short and hard life has been for most people most of the time. And it was even worse before recorded history.
You don’t even have to look to the past. Just get a daily dose of world news. Most of the global population is hungry, poor, unhealthy, oppressed and uneducated.
For a quick dose of gratitude, search for “Guinea worms” on Google. Read what they can do to the millions of people in Africa who don’t have clean drinking water.
Still, when you’ve poured all your effort into succeeding at something you really care about, it feels unfair when you fail.
Perspective, friend. Hard work is no guarantee of success. A lot of people work as hard or harder and have less to show for it.
On the brighter side, we never have to search far to find plenty of blessings and wonders around us.
As long as you can enjoy the pleasures of the five senses–vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—you can appreciate the behavior of wild animals, savor the taste of pure, clean water, and marvel at the depth of a starry sky on a clear, dark night.
You’re probably better off than ninety-five percent of all the people on Earth today and ninety-nine percent of all the humans who have ever lived. You’re almost certainly healthier and safer, and your life will probably be longer and better.
Whether it was the lottery of life or a higher power that’s been generous to you, it’s not fair to dwell only on what you don’t have.
You will always feel short-changed if you compare yourself only to the few people who are better off than you. You can always feel lucky if you compare yourself to the vast majority of people who aren’t.
Since you have a choice, why not look in the direction that makes you feel better?
Experiments have shown that a sincere expression of gratitude can make you happier.
Appreciating abundance, thanking people, thanking God, or counting blessings is “an antidote to negative emotions,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She has spent her career studying happiness.
“Expressing gratitude bolsters self-worth and self-esteem,” she writes in The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want.
In addition, Lyubomirsky says, “traumatic memories are less likely to surface—and are less intense when they do—in those who are regularly grateful.”
Has your “gratitude muscle” weakened from lack of use? This week–with American Thanksgiving Day ahead of us–is a great time to start getting it back in shape.
Happy Thanksgiving!
–Scott Silverback