The Secret Perk About Gratitude

I never really got gratitude, until I realized that I’d gotten it all along. I would hear people talk about how practicing gratitude made a huge difference in their lives - they were happier and more fulfilled - but I never truly understood how that came about. 

I always thought I was grateful. I give real thank yous, I am [usually] polite, and I mean it. I genuinely appreciate and acknowledge other people and the things I have in life. But I didn’t see how expressing gratitude could be as transformational as people referenced; I didn’t see what was in it for me.

Then, suddenly and by degrees, I experienced a shift, and realized that what I had been calling gratitude was really appreciation (not quite the same thing) - of external things, of situational experiences, of other people. Appreciation expressed as acknowledgment is definitely good (and important), but not exactly true gratitude.  

Acknowledgment is an act, but gratitude is a shift.

And once I learned how to access the shift of gratitude, that thing I never really named became a game-changer in my life.

I thought that those people who spoke so highly of the happiness and fulfillment that comes from gratitude had some sort of special ingredients that I was missing. But it turns out, they don’t. I had all the ingredients in my life for gratitude and you probably do to. The key to gratitude is a matter of shifting your perspective and feeling that important distinction between gratitude and appreciation. 

Here’s what happens…

1. Getting Stopped in Your Tracks Happens

If you’re future-oriented like me, this is huge. In focusing forward on the horizon/goal/next steps there’s momentum and progress, yet what’s what’s right here right now gets missed completely sometimes. For some of us, it takes a forced pause to get present. Sometimes it’s an occurrence- like a near-miss of a giant tree getting blown to the ground but missing you by seconds (actually happened to me the other day). Or losing someone. Or the color of the sky (which caused me to stop midrun to take the photo above). Or an inspiring act of kindness from someone. Sometimes it’s learning something we can’t ignore- like a sobering medical diagnosis. Or a private truth someone confides. Sometimes it’s a relationship- like a friend or loved one in need. Or a bolt of connection you feel with someone you didn’t see coming. These moments force us to pause, get present and pay full attention.

2. Sudden Perspective Happens 

Hearing a story of someone who’s overcome bigger challenges than we have or has found utter joy and success with far less than we have, suddenly we see the things we easily have/do with a new appreciation, right? Feeling human connection, new ease, happiness or love after we once felt struggle, sadness, or loneliness– we get the stark difference in comparison. These moments spotlight the contrast between what is and what could otherwise be.

3. Feeling Significance Happens 

In those moments of connection, pause and contrast, we can be moved, touched or inspired by what is. This takes some mental/emotional openness, and is the game-changer. We can experience a profound moment of a-ha appreciation that fills what normally feels insatiable in a unique way, clearing the lens through which we expect things from the world, allowing us to feel joy. 

Or we can just keep plowing forward, missing or dismissing it. 

This is a choice.

Every Day Happens...

Many days I do get it now- it’s not lost on me, because I've created space for those three things to occur, because I’ve created the practice to give myself a lens through which I am struck by the generosity or beauty or uniqueness or wonder of something or someone. Or the inextricable connection between people, moments and seemingly unrelated occurrences right along with the individuation of them all. These things hit me like a smack in the head (or gut or heart). Wow. Awe. Joy. ..not lost on me.

I could’ve been easily hit by that giant, falling tree the other day, but I wasn’t… not lost on me. I get the lucky, maybe miraculously precise timing of that.

The color of the clouds against the sky as the light changes is beautiful in a way humans can’t replicate… not lost on me. I get the brilliance and utter beauty that inspires me to the core every time.

I was diagnosed with cancer, then 10 weeks of process and a surgery later, I didn’t have cancer…not lost on me. I get the rare opportunity and restart in that.

I have a family of amazing people who communicate, support and are truthful with one another unconditionally... not lost on me. I get the invaluable gift of that.

I have the ability to make a huge difference in people’s lives in a powerful and unique way… not lost on me. I get the bigness and responsibility of that.

So now I get this elusive word, and its secret perk I never understood in those three things happening together...

Being Present + getting Perspective + feeling Significance = [not-lost-on-me] FULFILLMENT....as in filled up in a unique way that brings an unparalleled internal clarity and peace. 

Many days I don’t get it. I get caught up in my head just like you might. I move too fast, focus forward or back too much, and I miss it. Great things might be all around me, and it IS lost on me. I always try to show my appreciation - but gratitude is something I've built practice for so that it doesn’t get lost, and keeps my brain scanning for the good, rather than missing it.

Check out the four steps I use daily, and see what you think. My experience? 10 days of this, and you're looking at life through a different, clarified, beautiful lens...

The Four Steps to Real Gratitude

Meanwhile, take a breath, look around, and get the amazingness in and around you right this second- it's right there. 

©SarahSinger&Co. 2015

Impact Everywhere

Scenario #1:                                     

I got 20 minutes with a group of bright, talented new hires last week in a new company I’m working with. It was a spontaneous decision to have them spend a few minutes with me as the expert coach since I happened to be in the building during their onboarding. I knew that this might be my only window to make impact with them (never met them before, might never see them again), so I went for it. I dove in, assessed where I could focus for the most impact, coached them individually and as a group pretty intensely, watched their thinking shift, then I was out. I intentionally made positive impact that would change some things about how they see themselves going forward.

That’s a really good twenty minutes to me. I measure my work’s accomplishment in level of  impact I have on people. In this case, I actually heard feedback today from that group last week who reported my twenty minutes with them as the most powerful in their ten day onboarding process. “She pushed hard, but not in a confrontational way, and pulled stuff out of me I didn’t know I had.” Awesome.

Overt acknowledgments are pretty nice. Yet most of the time I have to go on the cues I get in the moment (you, too, can develop the sensitivity to see the moment of shift for another person if you’re looking for it).  I maximize the moment to create a shift and then trust that it’s going to have marinating, multiplying impact as that shift takes root in their thinking after I’ve gone.

 Scenario #2:                                                                                      

A crew of city engineers were doing the final reseeding and strawing next to the street they’d been working on yesterday, as I jogged through them on my regular path .

“Thanks for doing this- it makes a big difference, and it’s going to look really good when you’re done!” 

That shoutout takes 5 seconds to say, doesn’t slow down my run at all, and can actually be the one nice acknowledgment those guys get that day for their work making a positive difference in other people’s lives.

...Which brings more meaning and satisfaction to what they do. And maybe causes them to feel more pride in their work and the positive effect it has in the world. Which makes them happy. And maybe sparks them to think about and acknowledge other people in the same way. Which carries it on…

Except I didn’t say it. 

Instead I just smiled and said “Hi,” as I continued to run past. I thought it, but it didn’t fully occur to me to verbally acknowledge them and my appreciation of their work until I was already too far down the road, out of earshot.

Missed moment. 

As soon as I ran past, I knew I’d missed it. I could’ve said something right there and made positive impact for that whole crew. I actually spent several of the next minutes of my run regretting that moment and thinking about this very idea of how easy it actually is to make more positive impact by just becoming more aware in those moments of opportunity.

So, I ran a little harder and faster, hoping I’d get back to those guys while they were still there, and make it right. When I did, many of them had gone, but a few remained. I ran up to them and delivered that simple little acknowledgment. A ten second exchange, I watched their thinking shift, then I was out. In that quick ten seconds, a little caught off guard, they went from surprise, to really getting what I said, to big-grin, standing up-a-little-straighter satisfaction of being newly proud of their work and acknowledged for it by someone in the world. They played it off casually, but I knew I’d struck a chord. I intentionally made a positive impact that would change some things a little about how they see themselves going forward that day. And I didn’t even lose time off my run.

That’s a really good ten seconds to me. Not as good as if the whole crew had been there to feel it, but a difference made for those few guys. Think starfish story,“I made a difference for that one.” Not as big and dramatic as Scenario #1, but who’s to say?

It’s right there.... 

Okay… so maybe this idea of making impact is one that I think about more than other people, yet I’m clear that this is way bigger than what I do for a living. We could consciously be making positive impact 100 times a day if we actually paid attention to the moments of opportunity we’re passing by all the time.

I can drop a pebble in a pond, and watch it as it disappears to the bottom of the pond. I may notice the ripples my pebble causes, but how often do I follow them, making impact somewhere else, 90 degrees and a good distance away from where I focused my pebble in the water?  Bucky Fuller coined the term Precession, the idea that there’s impact happening at 90 degree angles from our focus all the time, like those ripples reaching out to the edges you can’t even see in a pond. I choose to turn an otherwise disconnected moment near someone else (think standing in line at the grocery store) into one of connection and positive impact, and who knows what that might ripple into for that person?

I’m convinced of the truth that every single interaction we have in the civilized world has an impact on someone else. 

If you can think of an exception, please let me know, as I haven’t found one yet.

Sometimes it’s direct, sometimes it’s delayed, and sometimes it’s in that ripple effect that happens in the pebble-tossing of our actions/words into the shared pond of our collective awareness. Just in the range of what we intentionally do and say to make impact and the ripples that causes without our even noticing... it’s staggering, and everywhere.

Kaizen is a Japanese concept referring to small, seemingly imperceptible changes over time which yield a big difference in the end. The impact we have in the course of an hour, day and so on can be much like this. Lots of little choices and interactions, over time...

Let’s first establish that a moment of interaction can fall within a huge range from me jogging past you and just making eye contact briefly, to stopping to say something that really touches you, makes a positive difference and sticks with you. There’s a pretty big range in-between. And- there’s the negative version of this range… I could jog right by, not noticing you, or stop to say something that really offends or hurts you, which then makes a negative impact, and sticks with you.

We have so many kinds of interactions in just the course of one day. See if you can count the number of possible moments of interaction you’ve had in the last few hours. Not just the moments you interacted with someone, but all the openings when you could’ve. Just this morning in the hour before my three kids left for school, I lost count of the moments with them where I actually was or could be making impact on their state, thinking, beliefs or course of their day. Every look exchanged (smile or scowl?), every word choice, every topic chosen influences. Just in the course of writing these few paragraphs, I’ve had eight emails, two calls and one live conversation come in (I let them all go until later), all representing potential moments of impact (on me as I read them, on another, as I reply). I also posted a few times on Facebook and Twitter today, each post an opportunity to impact lots of people with a few simple keystrokes.

This is one of those concepts that worms its way into your thinking, and then you start noticing it everywhere. So- we’ve got an opening here to gain new awareness going forward. What if we started considering our impact everywhere in all of those moments, and consciously chose to make them count meaningfully with positive impact?

Here’s a start:

•  Reflect on the last few interactions or opportunities for interaction you’ve had (even with strangers). What impact did you have? Even if you ignored them, you had impact of some kind, so own it.
• Think about how you could’ve used those moments to make positive impact somehow.
• Going into your next interactions, consciously choose to connect with or contribute to someone. Notice something positive (even the most cynical can see it), then actually acknowledge it out loud to that person.
• Notice the moments you encounter everywhere, where you actually have a choice, but never even considered.
• Notice the moments you make negative impact. Maybe intentionally, maybe not, pay attention to how your inattention or sour state get on other people. (We’ve all been there)
• Be willing to give with impact in the 5-minute Favor, as Adam Grant shows us. You can create big movement for someone in very little effort.

It all counts. I assess the maximum impact for the moment, and dive in as the work I do every day. You could too. Yet the small, little moments not only make impact, but ripple and multiply into impact we can’t even measure.

Go.

What it Stirs in Us…

While crisis stirs fear and all that goes with that, it can also bring out some important things in people.  We suddenly look at our lives and see what really matters- what we’ve got which really counts and what we can give to help others who really need it.

Gratitude…

Tragedy can bring out amazing Gratitude in us. We suddenly take stock, and get how lucky we really are in the great scheme of things. For the last couple of months I’ve been doing a gratitude exercise, in which I reflect and take a minute to capture all that I value and am grateful for… every day. It’s one thing to do this as an isolated reflection or in the wake of a tragedy as many are doing right now – but doing this every day really shifts something about how one sees the world. I highly recommend it. As part of the process, I make a list of ten things I value and am grateful for right now. Two of the things I wrote today were “waking up this morning in health and strength” and “the opportunity to make a difference in the world.” These seem especially poignant today.

Try completing this every day for the next 10 days, and your view of the world will shift, guaranteed. From Alan Walter:

• Goal for today…

• What am I willing to give to others today?

• What 10 things do I value that I am grateful for right now?

• What do I value that another does for me that I am grateful for right now?

• What am I happy about right now?

Empathy…

Yesterday shook up our world again, as Boston went from a scene of celebration to tragedy in a second. The fear of that struck me hard.  In looking at the footage (like other similar events) we see people flee in fear. Yet we also see people who run IN to help, which is inspiring, and something I spend a lot of time thinking about how to tap. People responding with empathy, care and support for one another in complete humanity. Maybe I’m just seeing it more because that’s my filter, yet it seems to me that the more we get pushed and tested, the more we’re supporting and stepping up rather than retreating or just protecting ourselves. For the first time it seems that the stories of people helping in this crisis are overshadowing the stories of shock. We’re becoming more resilient and more united in spirit.  There’s much work to do for this to translate into everyday empathy for one another in normal times, but let’s start here.

Impact…

Even though these incidents of crisis are happening more and more, I believe that the world can change with the choices we make and the ripples we cause toward good. A week ago, a very special project I’ve been involved with for the last two years about the possibility and coming together toward a world without hate, delivered its message to 10,0000 people at once at a ceremony in Birkenau, the biggest extermination camp of the Holocaust. It’s a project of light, hope and creating the world we want rather than staying stuck in the pattern of darkness we’ve had. As my partners and I watched it livestreamed from the other side of the world, it was an amazing moment which blew me away in significance, connection, pride and hope. We can create the world we believe is possible.

Significance…

In a few days, my oldest daughter will become a Bat Mitzvah.  This is a big deal, and signifies the end of a long, intense process for her and for our family. I’ve been immersed in big conversations daily with her about the meaning of life, her purpose and how we choose our paths… a lot for anyone to wrap their head around, let alone a thirteen year old with a coach like me for a mom. Yesterday’s events put a particularly focused point on our discussion about people and how every choice impacts so much more than we think.

Inspiration…

Finally, there’s this candle you see on the page. It’s a memorial candle sitting here next to me, and it’s lit because it’s the third anniversary of my dad’s death- his Yartzeit, as it’s called in my religion. People light these candles when someone dies, but also every year on a person’s Yartzeit-so today in the wake of Boston’s tragedy, it has even more meaning.  One of the ways I process, reflect and summon my energy is through running. Even before yesterday’s events, I knew that today’s run would be significant, with my dad fueling it. He was an avid runner who protected that time as his solo space to connect with himself and sort out the world. While I didn’t really get that or get into it until a few years ago, I now I hold that time as sacred much like he did, and he’s my inspiration for every run.  He used to say that running was his time to pray. Personally, I’ve never really been a big pray-er. I reflect, I think deeply about things, I have frequent moments of true spiritual connection, but not in the form of direct praying to God. And yet, without intending it, all week a little tune from my childhood has been playing in my head… It’s the Modeh Ani prayer, which we used to sing as kids and my dad loved. He sang it while he ran each morning. The translation: “I am thankful to God for allowing me to awaken to another day…” In the wake of this week, yesterday and what we’re all causing in the world with each choice, this couldn’t be any more meaningful.

Forward…

So today I started my run with tears.  I believe that tears are the literal overflow of emotions (any kind) that have hit or filled us so much that they need a spillway, so no surprise today, as gratitude, empathy, loss, inspiration and my dad both filled and fueled me.

My dad, who taught me to question everything, think and feel deeply about things, make impact in the world every day, come together with support when someone needs it and share what you’ve got to make a difference in the world…is present. If he were physically here, this week he’d pull us together into the kitchen for a family meeting in which he’d remind us about sticking together, supporting one another, reaching out to those who need it and being proud of what we’re able to impact, despite the circumstances.

And so we are…

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

Building Ourselves Out

It's all relative, right?

I sit here on my deck typing, enjoying the view and the space, and can barely remember what it was like a few years ago before we built this deck out, almost doubling its size.  It seems to me now that it used to be soooo small- how did we even fit on it?  Yet at the time, we'd moved from a Chicago city apartment with no outside space- the little deck this once was seemed huge, relatively speaking.  How quickly we forget as we build out...

As a 6-year old, my son’s mad and crying about having to pick up his legos after he plays with them.  There are too many of them, how will I ever do it, it’s too hard…

Ridiculous to an 8-year old.

As an 8-year old girl, my daughter throws a fit over the idea of having to put all her things away when she’s done with them every time.  How can I do all of that all the time, it’s too much, it’s not fair…

Annoying to an 11-year old.

As an 11-year old, my other daughter gets overwhelmed by a book report she has to write.  Will it be good enough, can I do it, it’s so big, 2 pages is so long, it’s too hard…

Laughable to a teenager.

As a teenager, I was confronted by all of my homework, being prepared for testing and school, doing (or choosing not do do) all that my parents asked me to do, keeping track of my friends and relationships, meeting obligations to teams and extra-curricular organizations. How can I manage it all, be good at it all, be liked and hold it together, it’s too hard…

Piece of cake to a college student.

As a college student mostly supported by my parents, pulling all-nighters to get projects done, balancing my social life with studying, budgeting to make spending money last a little longer, completely stressed about a big test, paper or project due.  It’s hard, will I be able to pull it all off, this is so huge and all on me…

Enviable to a professional.

When I started out as a professional, it was a new list: hitting deadlines, managing someone else’s expectations, taking on my own growth path to advance, having to initiate, find a partner, have a life outside of work, pay my bills, create a voice in the world.  So big, so much to manage, how can I do it all well and maintain any balance…

Easy to a parent.

We can keep going with these ever-expanding layers.  We could just follow the professional layers. Or the personal layers.  Or the relationship layers.  Or the multiple-roles-in-multiple-circles-of-our-lives-layers that build as we progress in life (professional, personal, family, community, world).  The point is that we’re always building ourselves out further.  With each addition, it’s hard for us to remember how big that former version of our lives felt even though we see clearly with hindsight how much simpler it was!  As we break through to each level, we learn through the challenges of it, expand into it and ultimately end up able to handle more, gaining a wider perspective and ready to move on again.

Is this about Comfort Zone, and expanding it?  Yes.

Is it about Perturbation, and learning through it?  Yes.

Is it all about perspective?  Always.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2011

Airways

It’s all about getting perspective.

This is most obvious to me in looking at the world through airplane windows for many continuous minutes on end, like the one in this picture, somewhere above the clouds between Ohio and California.

Sometimes the rhythm of a day or week or couple of months feels labored, like a sprint within a marathon… and at the same time fleeting- like “where did that month go?”  It’s a strange sensation in time, and unsettling.

I’ve found myself more and more saying things like, “How did it get to be July- wasn’t it just fall?” or (to one of my three quickly growing kids) “How did you get to be so big all of the sudden?”  These are the kinds of statements I used to hear adults say when I was little, and thought to myself how old and out of touch with reality they were.

I don’t think I’m that old or out of touch with reality- even proud that I’m not, yet…

Yet, one of the challenges for me is the balance of being completely present in the moment- with my work, my family or in those rare moments by myself- and keeping perspective on where it all fits (strategically or organically) in time and space and reality, then negotiating those tensions.

The #1 reason I’ve had for a long time for not doing most of the things I know I should in my life (from sleeping as much as I should to putting laundry away to creating baby photo albums for my now-big kids) and in my business (from getting an assistant to handling expense reports to training someone to teach my programs) has been that “I don’t have time.”

From clients, friends and family, I hear this reason of not enough time for not doing things, taking action or just taking a breath from people all the time, and I get it.  I do. 

Yet…

I’m realizing that it’s less about making time for things, and more about creating AIRWAYS.

I was in a coaching conversation recently with someone who was going that direction… “I don’t have time to…”  The description was one I understood well- feeling like it’s getting harder and harder to breathe because there’s no space in this current self-created reality to even do that- and I found myself coaching, “…exactly why you need to do it anyway- youneed to create an airway!”  It was one of those coaching moments I was proud of, because it connected… it was true for this person, and is true for me a lot of the time, too.  It opened up some possibility all the way around. Maybe for you, too?

In that sprint-within-the-marathon cadence of my life sometimes, the only way to get more air into my lungs is to go find it. Like someone crashing on an ER cart who can’t ask for the air because they can’t get enough of it to speak the words, I too often go into autopilot of shallow breathing stress without reaching out for an airway, and these are the very days and weeks I find myself missing in my perspective of time- hence, “How did it get to be July?”

So I’ve been on a personal campaign of finding my airways and using them consciously.  It’s interesting to note, that the more I seek them out and choose them, the more I use them unconsciously, too.

Some of my current airways:

Jumping on the trampoline, listening to a great song, singing in the band I don’t have time to be in, calling and talking to a loved long-distance friend for even five minutes, working out to that point when my brain shifts from physical work to release, writing like this, looking up at the sky or trees for several minutes, holding hands with my son, reading books with my girls, saying the words, “energy, easy,” making my husband or one of my kids laugh really hard, looking out an airplane window down at the Earth, working with teenagers despite any other work I'm doing, sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to play the piano while everyone's sleeping, getting regular coaching myself, going on real dates with my husband, photographing nature, watching a TED talk, doing or creating or learning anything new.

I now understand that these things are not just bonus “nice-to-have-if-I-have-time-after-what-I really-need-to-get-done”, which is how I’ve always looked at them.  They’re actually essential for me to be complete, vital and the person I want to be. If I don’t have a good dose of them mixed into my daily life, everything else I do gets compromised- including my work, my impact, my patience, my ability to be present, my relationships and absolutely my perspective on it all.

So... what are your airways?

Hint: they're those things that fill you up every time, change your State in a great way, and leave your overall capacity for everything else you do better and bigger, breathing more fully (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually).

Find those airways, note them, then wedge them in. Especially when you don't have time. That's when they bring the most oxygen.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2010

Big Deep Breaths

I actually closed my eyes for a few seconds during my run this morning.  Not to be a daredevil, but actually to become more present and really absorb the sounds and environment around me fully, with big deep breaths.

My family has a cottage on a lake near my hometown where we spent the summers sailing, waterskiing, hiking in the woods and creating lifetime memories with our siblings, cousins and extended family.  It’s a little cottage built for a family of 4 or 5, which we usually pack with way too many people and lots of activity.  Over the years I’ve grown, gone far, far away, had my own adventures, grown up, made my own family, and created a whole life of my own. As everything around me has changed over time and I’ve evolved,  the cottage and the lake remain the same.  It’s where I got my first poison ivy, had my first kiss, learned to master water skiing, sailing and rowing, got in my biggest family fights, had my first high school party, bonded with my dad over boat rigging, bonded with my mom over peach canning, once saw 18 shooting stars on my 18th birthday with my best friends, experimented with my first home improvements (the bathroom paint and wallpaper still crooked to show for it) introduced my own kids to nature and true imaginative play, and through it all, found my center.

The crunch of the gravel under my feet on the driveway never changes, nor does the quality of the air, the majesty of the trees, the buzz of the distant boats or the color of the leaves and flowers that seem to grow only here.  For more than all of my life, these things are constant, unlike most things.  When I’m far away, I imagine this place to find calm.  When I’m here, I soak it up and store it for later.

I think we all need a place like the lake and the cottage either in reality or in our imagination.  A place to get centered, find our peace, and count on to remain steadfast. There’s something about looking at the same tree I’ve looked at since I could open my eyes, and knowing that no matter where I am, or what I’m doing in the world it’s still here, growing, getting stronger, roots reaching deeper through it all.  As I ran the path just now on which my dad first coached me on how to run years ago, I closed my eyes to let myself go, record the sounds, capture the taste of the air, and fill up.

I’ll keep creating change and working to open possibility in the world every day.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep tapping back to my roots and this place for strength, inspiration and perspective.  The strength of the lake and awe of the trees make me stronger.

Big deep breaths- I’m off to make it a great day with my family, and create more memories to build on.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2009