Appreciation is a muscle….
Photo by Kate Trysh on Unsplash
Most people can’t do push ups well because they haven’t done it since they were 8 years old, and they are simply out of practice. It’s within each of us with arms and legs to not only do push ups, but be really good at it. To be a master of push ups.
Appreciation is the same. We don’t practice much during the day as we are constantly receiving signals from all directions that we are not worth much. So if we don’t feel appreciated, it’s hardly rocket science that we don’t have much mood and space to practice appreciation.
We are busy running around just to survive, or so it seems, and we are not receiving as much appreciation as we deserve.
Not only are we not appreciated, we are constantly told directly or indirectly by our own family, community, and workplace…….. That we are replaceable and that if we don’t “improve” we are going to be fired or downgraded somehow. Or our customers tell us that we will be replaced if we don’t “do better” or “drop the price” .We live in an Olympic size pool of depreciation.
It’s very easy to be blinded by depreciation to see the worth of our appreciation. The world is short of appreciation, and because of that it’s a hugely rare and valuable commodity. This means that appreciation is really much more appreciated than we realise. The world needs more of it from us.
What’s more important is that appreciation is actually good for our mental health. When we give it out without asking for anything in return. When we give before we receive. So we don’t have to have any reason to give appreciation. Just give, give, give.
Just being in touch with the wonders of being alive, the biggest miracle of all, should make us feel appreciative of everyone and everything we are present for, right now. Smile at everything we have got, even the problems and difficult people. Appreciation automatically rises to the top of our mind.
But of course, it takes practice. Like doing push ups, it requires serious practice. May be a calendar with set times to practice. Set up times to look for things and people to appreciate for. Then just do it. Find something to appreciate someone for. Reach out and appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.
Before long, you will find your appreciation muscles grow stronger and stronger. Just like whichever muscle we exercise in the gym necessarily grows stronger.
I am curious, if we set “find someone/something to appreciate” at least 5 times a day in our calendar/reminder, would our mental health, relationships, work effectiveness, health………..all necessarily improve?