The Science of Gratitude and Financial Success
Find out how being grateful affects your financial success. Plus, Money Girl reveals 5 tips for easily cultivating more gratitude in your daily life.
Laura Adams, MBA
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The Science of Gratitude and Financial Success
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it’s about acknowledging what we’re grateful for. We don’t get bogged down with giving gifts or going all-out with home decorations; instead, the day is about sharing time and great food with friends and family.
In this episode, I’ll discuss the science of being grateful, and how it affects your financial success. You’ll also get 5 tips to help easily cultivate more gratitude in your daily life. .
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What Is Gratitude?
Author Melody Beattie says:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
We hear a lot about the benefits of gratitude. But it’s fascinating to know that they aren’t just theories. Scientists are studying the effects of gratitude and how to use it to achieve more goodness in our lives.
One the of world’s leading scientific experts on gratitude is Dr. Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis. He’s written multiple books about giving thanks, including Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity.
In order to have more gratitude, it’s important to define exactly what it is. According to Dr. Emmons, gratitude is made up of 2 parts. First, it’s an affirmation of goodness. You might acknowledge that there are good things in the world and that you’ve received good gifts during your lifetime.
This sounds simple, but can be very difficult if you’re facing serious challenges like health problems, getting out of debt, or clinical depression. It’s easy to buy into a “me versus the universe” mentality and only focus on what’s bad or has gone wrong in your life.
But having gratitude doesn’t mean that you believe your life is perfect. It means that when you consider life in its entirety, you identify some amount of goodness in your life.
See also: How to Get Out of Debt Faster, Part 1
There’s a second and important component of gratitude that Dr. Emmons points out: he says we have to recognize that the sources of goodness are outside of ourselves. That means you must realize that other people, or even a higher power, gave us many gifts that we use to achieve goodness in our lives.
In other words, you should consider where that goodness came from by remembering how you’ve been helped and supported by other people. Maybe it was a family member, teacher, boss, or a role model that you’ve never even met.
We can appreciate positive traits in ourselves, but true gratitude involves a humble acknowledgement that much of what we have is due to the goodness of others. The highest form of gratitude is appreciating what you have and honoring those who’ve helped you, by helping others.
The highest form of gratitude is appreciating what you have and repaying those who’ve helped you, by paying it forward to help others.
What Are the Benefits of Gratitude?
The research on gratitude documents the psychological, physical, and social benefits it can bring, including:
- Increased happiness, by boosting a variety of emotions and mindsets, such as feeling satisfaction from life and experiencing joy, enthusiasm, positivity, and optimism.
- Strengthened relationships, by feeling closer to friends, being more satisfied with romantic partners, having compassion, and promoting forgiveness (even between ex-spouses after a divorce)
- Reduced anxiety, by having fewer feelings of helplessness or worry.
- Better sleep, by falling asleep faster, sleeping more hours each night, and feeling more refreshed in the morning.
- Improved overall health, by boosting the immune system, reducing illness, lowering blood pressure, and having fewer aches and pains.
- Raised resiliency, by recovering from negative or traumatic events faster, including veterans with PTSD.
Your Gratitude and Financial Success
That last benefit, resiliency, is a big part of how gratitude can transform your financial life and allow you to have more success. No matter if financial challenges are the result of earning too little, spending too much, or a dangerous combination of both, it takes a lot of resiliency to bounce back.
If you have a grateful disposition, studies show that you’re much more likely to learn from negative life events with less stress, because you put them in proper perspective.
In the face of serious trauma and suffering, gratitude blocks negative emotions, like resentment or regret, which can destroy happiness or encourage depression. If you’re grateful, you can begin to untangle a problem—such as being over your head in debt or having a looming foreclosure—and consider solutions much more quickly, instead of getting permanently stuck in them.
5 Tips for More Gratitude
Just because gratitude can improve your life, doesn’t mean that it’s easy to cultivate. Here are 5 tips to become more grateful in your daily life:
Tip #1: Keep a Gratitude Journal
I’m sure you’ve heard that setting aside time to write down what you’re grateful for in a journal is a healthy practice. Studies by many psychologists have backed up the benefits of this exercise, and shown that it can increase happiness.
Journaling is a great way to remind yourself on a regular basis of the gifts you have and all the good things you enjoy. It focuses your attention on developing more positive thinking and eliminating negative or ungrateful thoughts.
You might list one thing you’re grateful for each day or 5 things once a week. It could be something seemingly small, such as being able to read this article, listen to the Money Girl podcast, or experience a beautiful sunset.
Tip #2: Write a Gratitude Letter
Research has shown that writing a letter of gratitude to someone who helped bring goodness into your life—such as a family member, friend, or mentor—increases happiness.
Tip #3: Remember the Bad
To be grateful, it can help to think about hard times you may have experienced in the past and recognize how far you’ve have come since then.
Tip #4: Use Visual Reminders
It’s easy to forget that gratefulness is important, so use a visual reminder – like a sticky note on your bathroom mirror or refrigerator, or a framed picture on the wall – to trigger daily thoughts of gratitude.
Tip #5: Watch your Language
Instead of talking about problems or what you don’t have, focus on the good you have in your life. Grateful people speak much more about their gifts or abundance than what they may lack. They also tend to smile more and say “thank you” more often.
Being grateful is never about settling for less or not striving to achieve your true potential. It’s an understanding that life isn’t always in our control, and that we must appreciate the gifts we do have right now, both big and small.
To read more about gratitude, visit the Greater Good Science Center website and read Why Gratitude Is Good.
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About the Author
Laura Adams received an MBA from the University of Florida. She’s an award-winning personal finance author, speaker, and consumer advocate who is a frequent, trusted source for the national media. Money-Smart Solopreneur: A Personal Finance System for Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, and Side-Hustlers is her newest title. Laura’s previous book, Debt-Free Blueprint: How to Get Out of Debt and Build a Financial Life You Love, was an Amazon #1 New Release. Do you have a money question? Call the Money Girl listener line at 302-364-0308. Your question could be featured on the show.