Think about an entire year’s worth of activities – life, family, work, moments of strength, times of insecurities, wins, losses, and everything in between. The end of every year tends to be a reflection of what can be done in the looming next year to top this past year’s performance. But, not so fast…
Whether this year-over-year challenge is with yourself, another person or an entire industry, if at any point external resources are an important part of your success, expressing gratitude should be a priority. In many success stories, you can’t get there without finding those.
What are external resources?
External resources supplement and complement your internal resources.
Your internal resources might be staff, students, faculty, solutions, funds, connections, experts, and so much more. Think, “Who outside of your team helped streamline and/or facilitate this year’s experienced success?”
Examples:
- That faculty member that helped define legacy perspective on a controversial topic
- The vendor that supplemented your staff during a large project and got the impossible to done
- The solution that dramatically improved efficiency, service, experience in one-to-many areas of business
- The student that provided transparent feedback on a process, identifying the best path for improvement moving forward
What being thankful feels like
As the person expressing gratitude, one might feel indebted, vulnerable, even weak. The first time you put yourself on the back burner to focus on who or what helped you find success – or even resulted in a slight hop in the right direction towards success – can feel scary. Once you get past a slew of your own insecurities, it feels pretty great to widen your net and welcome others into a shared, positive outcome.
On the flip-side, the recipient feels valued. Who doesn’t want to feel valued?
What being thankful sounds like
To others that are on ‘Team You’, it sounds like you are collaborative and confident enough in your capabilities to share the gratitude. To those that are less on your side, it might sound like weakness or even failure. To the recipients of the gratitude, there is appreciation of having been able to provide the needed support at an important time.
As brain coach Jim Kwik shared in Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.” Meaning, when someone is not on your side, never let their negativity or judgmental side-eye impact your ability to express gratitude.
The result of giving thanks
- The Giver: There is an awareness of the positive impact that resulted from reaching out for help. There are far too many people in our world ashamed to ask for help. Guess what? We all need help. The sooner that is realized, the easier all paths become.
- The Recipient: There is a feeling of value and a drive to continue to provide service. Meaning, should you need their help again, they will likely be there.
- The Audience: You have eyes on you at all times – of all shapes, sizes and colors. How you ask for help, receive help and express gratitude for that help is critical to paying it forward. Folks around you learn that expressing gratitude is a strong, positive attribute. Modeling gratitude makes it easier for others to emulate and master the simple act of saying thanks.
Are we referring to people, places or things?
Simply put, yes.
Let’s look at my 2025 as an example.
- People: The team members I work alongside are the reason for my every professional season. No matter where I rank on the ladder, it doesn’t matter. Up, down and sideways – when I experience success, it always is thanks to them in some way.
- Places: These are the partners we need to pull in on the regular. Working in a business that chooses to run lean, this often means we need to cultivate valued, reciprocal, authentic partner relationships. This year for me, we had some true standouts. Oxford Global Resources (thanks to Danielle, Wayne, Helen) kept our Salesforce train chugging in the exact right direction, F3’s laser focus on integrations will dramatically support ‘25 goals, and Envision made cabling feel effortless across 130+ acres.
- Things: A few collaboratively selected solutions will take us in ‘25 to truly aspirational heights – Momentus for scheduling optimization, Square for culinary and payment processing, and Orange Logic (thanks AVP!) for digital asset management. Sound boring? You have NO IDEA how magical these systems will feel in our environment.
- Bottom Line: Recognizing people, places and things and showing gratitude is leadership level: MASTER. It refuels a productivity fire over and over and over. Five stars. Highly recommend.
Do you recognize yourself in any of the above examples? I bet at a minimum it made you think and possibly even highlighted a moment in time when you asked for help, got the help, and improved as a result of both. If that isn’t the way to start a new year I don’t know what is – here’s to staying grateful in 2025!