The Stress-Management Power of Thankfulness
Every year, the Thanksgiving holiday reminds me of the stress-management power of being thankful. I suppose the challenge is continually seeking to revisit what I am grateful for all the other days of the year.
Trailblazing in a new direction always involves stressful setbacks, unanticipated problems, and challenging hurdles. Overcoming bumps in the road is an essential and inevitable part of the startup journey. When facing the latest difficulty, one of the essential elements for a startup leader is being able to summon a positive frame of mind to lead effectively.
Over the past couple of decades as a startup CEO, one technique I have leveraged from my spiritual life is applying the power of thankfulness to the situation to help establish that positive frame of mind and emotional energy required to overcome adversity. A key element of prayer is expressing thanks for the blessings presently in our lives. When I need a mental reset for my startup, in prayer or otherwise, the process of stepping back and bringing to mind those things that have gone or are going well, the resources we have available, and the opportunities before us is a powerful tool for aligning my mindset in a positive direction.
Being grateful is feeling appreciation for something done or received while being thankful captures a sense of being pleased and relieved. Both are positive feelings, and like shaping your face into a smile even when you aren’t yet feeling happy, asserting to yourself the things you are grateful for reshapes your frame of mind. Even if the world appears dark and grim, and finding things to feel thankful for feels challenging, just start with little things. When it is really a struggle to find the positive, I start with my environment. The sun came up today. The weather is lovely. My colleague smiled at me. My colleagues are brilliant problem-solvers, and they are in this with me. We have identified an important problem, and once we have successfully solved it, we will bring a blessing into the worlds of our customers. Start small if necessary and work your way around your world. Usually, once you start, it gets easier to see positives in your immediate world.
You can even go further and tackle finding your way to being thankful for the actual bumps in the road you are wrestling with. That may sound crazy; however, listen to country legend Garth Brook’s song, Unanswered Prayers, to reflect on how this lyric can often be true “some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” While I sometimes wish the journey were easier, hindsight often reveals that the pain and difficulty of the moment actually forces us to solve deeper problems well. So if I am asking God to just give me an easy road, I would be missing out on the more elegant solution or the deeper relationship that hardship uncovers. That is why I appreciate that when God says “no” (aka ‘unanswered prayer’) to some wish that I have, he may well be setting us up for greater success. So, when I am profoundly frustrated and feeling bleak, I will even dive into being thankful for the hardships and difficulties that drive us to greater heights.
When you are stressed and anxious, take a moment to pray or reflect on what you have to be thankful for to give yourself (and your team?) a reset and boost of emotional energy to tackle the next hill.
