How Gratitude Helps Find Inner Peace

Did you ever realize what gratitude does to our lives? How does it also affects us at work? Gratitude is an inner force that controls our behavior and our actions. Did you ever encounter if you are thankful for everything you have in life or at work? How does it influence your temperament? And consequently your interactions with either your family or colleagues at work. In this post, I will discuss how gratitude helps find inner peace. And it is this inner peace that helps us tread the path to finding fulfillment in life.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

– Melody Beattie

It was the morning of a weekend at work. And I guess I had already become cranky. There was something that was piquing me for a while. It is because of a work stream that should have been going better. I was having a deluge of expectations from other colleagues that could have made things go smoother. But it was not happening for a while now. Hence the frustration. Do you face similar situations at work or even in relationships? We always have expectations. Expectations for more than we have or get. But do we try to take a step back and be thankful for what we have in the first place?

What is Gratitude?

Oxford Languages defines gratitude as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”. Gratitude is the acknowledgement of everything we have got in our lives and being thankful for it. We all struggle in our lives. But how many times do we truly appreciate what we have versus what we complain about?

It was a hot summer when I was scouting the streets of my home city back in India looking for a prospective client. I was young and fresh out of college, trying to make a living. Stand on my own feet financially. It was a grossly underpaid job. But I took it to learn. Product design and marketing. So why am I reminiscing about those memories after so many years? I guess I learned it the hard way. Many of us do. And I am truly thankful I learned it this way.

It depends how we take it. Either we could think that job or work is not worth it. Or we take it, do it well, and learn from our experiences and challenges. I am truly grateful for all the opportunities and challenges I faced throughout the various jobs I did in several countries.

How Gratitude Helps Find Inner Peace

What is inner peace? When do we usually experience inner peace? We usually find inner peace when we are at peace with ourselves.

If I go back to my state of crankiness recently upon a lot of introspection, I found I was not at peace with myself. The context is that multiple things at work had goofed up. Like a perfect storm. And I was trying to find the root cause. Why did it happen?

First, I started with finding issues with others. Then I thought, why shouldn’t I be grateful for what I got instead of what I didn’t get from others? This for sure helped me calm down.

Drilling more, I found there are multiple reasons. What I found was a significant portion lied in my sphere of work and not that of others. So of course, lots of learning for me.

Stop Complaining

Once we are grateful for what got versus what did not get, we stop complaining. It may take some time. But it does eventually happen.

It is easy to get into the situation trying to find fault with others or think about why we don’t get what we want. But the moment we think about what we have got, it changes our thinking. Then we can also think that there are so many people in this world or around us who don’t even have what we got. So shouldn’t we then think that we are fortunate? And stop complaining?

Aids Introspection

Then when we stop complaining, we can introspect. If we are going through a difficult situation in our lives or at work, why have gotten into this situation? What happened and how we got into it?

Find Answers to Questions

When we introspect, do we get answers to our questions? Many times we get and many times we don’t. Is our life not a quest for finding answers to our questions?

Find True Root Cause to Problems

Again, in the quest to find answers, often we find the true root cause of the problems or issues we are facing in life or at work. It might take collecting additional data or information then analyzing them. Because if we don’t get the root cause, we rarely find peace with ourselves. And our quest continues.

Reduces Frustration

Once we can get to the likely root cause (s) then usually we can rid of our frustration. We can find peace with ourselves.

Foster Learning

In this process, we learn. We learn a lot. So that we can start a better tomorrow. Fresh with new vigor and ideas. Of course, with a sense of gratitude and being apologetic, should we have hurt anyone’s feelings in the way? We learn from our mistakes or oversights.

Prepare Plan to Improve

Then we can prepare a plan to improve. Think through what we could have done better. What we missed and how. What we can do now to get back on track? And we will do better next time.

Move On

Subsequently, we can move on. Life is all about forgetting and forgiving. Many times, it is difficult to forgive ourselves. But we need to.

Become Better

In this journey, we continually try to get better. And eventually do.

Conclusion

It all starts with gratitude. How gratitude helps us find inner peace. And it is this inner peace that helps us lead a fulfilled life. With content, humility and willingness to give back because we have got so much from this world, society and community.