Table of Contents
Abstract
Gratitude and motivation are often thought of individually. After researching the two I found that they are actually very relevant to each other and tend to go hand in hand. Throughout my research focused on gratitude and the relation to motivation. Throughout my research paper I will discuss the following correlations to gratitude and their relationship to motivation; The history of gratitude, history of evolutionary psychology, neurological correlations, sociocultural correlations, spiritual, modern day, and psychological correlations.
Writing this paper I learned many interesting new things, including various forms of gratitude and different levels of motivation. I also discuss the importance of practicing gratitude and its health benefits along with its influence on our self motivation. In my research paper I will also touch on different beliefs and the way they can be misinterpreted when expressing gratitude. Gratitude is considered a positive emotion and it is something that will benefit each and every one of us greatly and really have a big impact on our motivation.
The History of Gratitude and Its Relation to Motivation
When I think of gratitude I think of being grateful. Gratitude is “the quality of being thankful.” A simple “thank you” does not always necessarily mean that person is genuinely thankful. Gratitude goes beyond that, afterall gratitude is an emotion we feel. Gratitude is something that we can all benefit from. Not only can it make us feel good about ourselves but it genuinely is good for your health. There are many health benefits when we talk about gratitude, for example gratitude has been proven to improve sleep, increased happiness, more satisfaction with life, better physical health, and greater resiliency just to name a few reasons. With gratitude usually comes motivation.
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Motivation and gratitude go hand in hand. Like gratitude, motivation can also benefit your health. When we feel motivated we tend to act in a certain way or do certain things that will raise the chances of a potential outcome that we highly desire. Gratitude plays a huge role in this because as I mentioned above, gratitude can cause increased happiness and satisfaction with life. When we are happy with life and the way things are going for us we tend to feel good, which reduces our stress. With less stress we can potentially make better decisions and stay more “level-headed.” This makes us look at things with a more positive outlook which makes almost anything feel attainable, which motivates us to go after what we want. If we truly feel motivated, we dedicate more time and attention to what it is that motivates us and tend to work hard for it. With all this chances are that we will attain what we seek therefore keep us happy and grateful.
Gratitude can be expressed in many ways, a simple “thank you” or a smile can make someone’s day. There are many different ways we can express gratitude. We never know other people’s daily life struggles, a smile could be all they needed to get uplifted and find that motivation they were seeking in order to go after their goal. I truly believe that gratitude is the motivator. Motivation is related to positivity as gratitude is as well, instead of looking at things in a negative way people who express gratitude tend to be more accepting of what things are and can look past it and not see an end in sight. This helps us have a positive outlook on life for a few reasons. It makes us more aware of what we have and makes us more thankful, we are less likely to take things for granted. Another reason would be the fact that in reality tomorrow will come (most of the time) and we will find a way to deal with what needs to be taken care of. A more “it is what it is” kind of attitude.
This topic is super relative to times like we are in right now, this Covid-19 pandemic has caused many more people to display gratitude. Times like this are when gratitude is needed most. It’s easy to sit and pout complaining all day about how bad things are or how we can’t do anything and have to stay home. But instead you have people going out of their way to help get supplies out to those in need (that are not employed), you also have people donating money or food to help those in need. Gratitude can get you far in life, gratitude is something that should be contagious.
Although we are “social distancing” at the moment and we are encouraged to avoid close contact amongst one another, I think this will encourage more gratitude. The pandemic will make a lot more people grateful for things that they took for granted before. Another reason gratitude is so important during times like we are in now is because it reduces toxic emotions and also reduces depression. With people asked to stay home and pretty much staying away from each other unfortunately a lot of people are alone or in an unhappy/toxic environment that they can’t escape or at least as easy as they could before, it can cause depression or anxiety which can lead to worse behaviors.
History of Gratitude in Evolutionary Psychology and Its Relationship to Motivation
Psychology in very simple words, is the study of the mind. Psychology is a very important field. This is a field that is very important to human nature, since we study things such as performance, behaviors, and mental operation. Like psychology, gratitude and motivation also deal with behaviors, performance and mental operation. Psychology allows us to get a more in depth look into why people are the way they are. It allows us to observe behaviors and catch certain patterns, this helps us understand human behavior a lot better. It also not only helps us understand people’s behaviors but why these behaviors occur and when.
There are multiple stages of gratitude. The ability to understand the mind and how the brain works is why we are able to define these stages of gratitude. The first stage of gratitude is acknowledgement, in this first stage you acknowledge all the good in your life and start seeing things in a more positive manner. It does not mean everything in your life is perfect and you are worry free. What it does mean is that during this stage, you start accepting how life is. The first stage is kind of the “build up” stage. I like to think of it as when the fog starts to clean. You start being thankful for not only what you have materialistically but you also notice that you have a purpose in this world, you have multiple things to live for. This alone starts creating happiness and more self-worth. The fact that we start feeling better about life and ourselves makes us feel as if we have gained something which fulfills the need of feeling that we have received something.
In the second stage of gratitude we start feeling thankful, but we start feeling thankful for others. During this stage we face a bit of a challenge, we start realizing that in reality someone can not be alone all the time. It takes a team to make it work. We start being thankful for those who have helped us get to the point that we are in now. This does not necessarily mean that we call everyone and say thank you for what you have done, although I believe it is healthy to reach out to at least a few people for.
However, we do realize it and take it into consideration, we take all those who have influenced our growth into consideration. People can have a positive impact on your life or a negative impact on your life, we can use those negative experiences and turn them into positives to grow. Stage two is the time this happens, we use the negativity as motivation to continue becoming better and growing in many aspects as a person. I think this is one of the hardest stages because it is where you have to express yourself a little bit more. Sometimes we are not sure how people will respond when we open up, thus a lot of people have a difficult time with this step. Once we get past that fear, we are able to form or even mend relationships, healthy relationships.
The third stage of gratitude is where it all starts to click, this is when you tell your brain you are running the show. By the third stage we are feeling a lot more comfortable and most importantly, we are feeling more in control. During this stage we have our mind built up strong and set on a positive outlook on life. Stage 3 makes us feel more confident. We start setting ourselves up for a permanent change in our mindset, we build up more consistency for the long term. It is important to really understand that there will be negatives in life, but it’s the way we handle these negative situations that determines the outcome. The key thing in this stage is the fact that you decide that you will not let any negativity dominate your positivity. Without evolutionary psychology we might not have such a deep understanding of gratitude or motivation let alone the relationships between them. What makes gratitude effective is that it becomes something more natural, it has multiple positive impacts on our mind, body and soul, almost without even trying.
Performance also gets impacted by motivation and gratitude. When looking at someone’s performance, for example an employer looking to get more productivity out of their employees. This is when gratitude and motivation are key. When we are working for others we want to feel appreciated, makes us feel wanted. Appreciation is a form of gratitude, which as I mentioned earlier this can most definitely boost motivation. They all tie into each other. When you run into this, you have industrial psychologists who come in and observe your work environment. Gratitude will produce the best work environment, which will also increase motivation. When you have multiple people motivated towards the same goal, your chances are very high that you will succeed.
Psychologist’ ability to observe and understand human behaviors makes all this possible. In the work environment there also tends to be a lot of “yes men.” This is either out of fear or just because they think it is what their boss wants to hear. The big difference is when the boss man/woman says “thank you” it is a lot more effective and a great way to display gratitude towards their employees. This does not only demonstrate appreciation but it starts to develop trust amongst one another and also leads to positive relationships. When trust is gained, motivation increases and this makes someone more calm and able to snap out of any negative state and transition into a more positive state.
