Self-Help - Appreciation

I want to share an entry written by Gerard from his blog New Era Leadership. Minsan kaya hindi nagiging masaya ang isang empleyado sa work eh hindi naa-appreciate ang kanyang mga ginagawa - na umaabot sa puntong "may silbi pa ba ako?' that leads eventually problems hindi lang sa office kundi sa personal side na rin. Marami akong natutunan sa entry na ito. Thanks Gerard for not only inspiring but a very moving/timely blog entry..

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated - William James

It was true when we were children, when we were teenagers, in our twenties, thirties and forties … and it is still true today: Whatever our age, we want to feel appreciated – it will be so until the day we die. There is nothing that can give us back that spark and energy to face the rest of the day or week, like a sincere word of appreciation. There is nothing that can change our attitude in an instant, like a surprising word of appreciation. There is nothing that can calm us down when we are on the attack, like a word of appreciation. There is nothing that can help us to appreciate other people, like when we receive a word of appreciation ourselves. Appreciation comes in all kinds: ‘Thank you for helping me out when I was in trouble’; ‘Thank you for being there for me’; ‘Thank you for understanding’; ‘Thank you for letting me feel valued’; ‘Thank you for your cooperation’; ‘Thank you for being the person you are’; ‘You made a difference to my life’; ‘You’ve done a great job here’.

The fact that we all have this ‘craving to be appreciated’, leads to potentially two different outcomes in the workplace. If the general feeling is that we are not appreciated at work, we tend to become more and more self centered. Whether you are the boss or a subordinate, if you don’t feel appreciated for your efforts, contributions, hard work and commitment, your thoughts begin to centre around yourself rather than the vision or purpose of the organisation, the role you can play, and other people’s needs. Your thoughts probably go in the direction of ‘what is it that keeps me here’. In the false hope that financial compensation will make up for the lack of people’s appreciation you try to motivate yourself with the security argument or thoughts of financial reward that still might come your way. In the meantime, you will simply go through the motions and try to keep your expectations of work enjoyment and sense of significance as low as possible.

The other possibility is that the work environment is one where in general people do feel appreciated - for their work as well as for the value of the relationships that they have with each other. People in such an environment snowball in a different direction - away from self centeredness to other centeredness: ‘What can I do to make the new member of our organisation feel more welcome?’; ‘What can I do to assist an overstressed colleague?’; ‘What can I do to improve our work processes?’; What can I do to let those who feel marginalised feel valued and appreciated?

We all know which of the two environments we would like to work in. What is the key to a positive work environment of appreciation? Leadership behaviour and leadership attitude. In simple terms it is to take the lead in showing appreciation rather than waiting for it. Our biggest obstacle in doing so is when we find it hard to appreciate ourselves. Hand in hand with appreciating ourselves is the ability to forgive ourselves and to get rid of the false belief that successful people never fail.

The following words of guidance (taken from The Seasoned Campaigner) can help you develop the right perspective on your own disappointments and sense of failure and put you in the positive frame of mind that will make you appreciate other people:

"The vast majority of highly successful people didn’t just fail once; they failed countless times before they achieved success. Where they differ from everyone else is that after every failure they sit back and asked themselves what they needed to adjust/tweak/change with the next attempt – they know that, in order to develop, grow, and become successful, they have to experience failure".

No matter how many mistakes they make, high achievers never let their mistakes devalue their worth as a person because they recognise the fact that God uses people who fail – there just isn’t any other kind of person around! In their walk through the difficulties they encountered on their road to success every high achiever cultivated seven abilities that were responsible for giving them the ability to stand up, dust themselves off, and keep on running.

These are the seven:

1. Reject Rejection: They never berate themselves for failure. They keep their self-worth intact because they don’t base their self-worth on any one performance in isolation. Their internal system never allows them to say “I’m a failure” – it only permits them to say “I missed that one” or “I made a mistake”. If you blame yourself when you fail you condition yourself into believing that you are worthless or talentless. Yes, you have to take responsibility for your actions and failures but you don’t have to take failure personally.

2. See Adversity as a Valuable Teacher: Successful people see any predicament as merely a temporary condition and not as a hole in which they are stuck forever. They have the confidence in themselves and in their abilities to know that setbacks happen and that their response to any setback is far more important than the setback itself. They are on the constant lookout for knowledge and know that this is often buried in adversity, so they are not afraid to confront adversity because they discard the baggage adversity brings and carry the diamonds they found buried under it in their pockets – and just keep on walking.

3. See Failures as Isolated Incidents: When high achievers fail they see the failure as a momentary event, not as a lifelong epidemic – it’s not personal – just the wrong move at the wrong time. They never let any single incident colour the view they hold of themselves.

4. Keep Expectations Realistic: The greater the objective you want to achieve, the greater the mental preparation required for overcoming the obstacles that you will encounter. You have to develop a dogged determination to “stay the course until the race is finished”. It takes time, effort, and ability to overcome setbacks, so why set yourself up for a painful experience with unrealistic expectations. High achievers approach each day with reasonable expectations in the knowledge that they can only take one step at a time. In this way they prevent their feelings getting hurt when things don’t turn out perfectly, and they are also able to take corrective action with the next small step they are about to take.

5. Focus on Strengths: High achievers always focus on their strengths. There are just a few things they do extraordinary well, so well in fact that they would never dream of hiring anyone to do them. There are many things that they do better than most – so they keep on doing them. Everything else – things they are not good at doing, or even hopeless at doing – they get other people to do for them. Winners concentrate at all times on what they can do, not on what they can’t do. If a weakness is a matter of character you need to devote a lot of attention to fixing it but if not, there are many people who have as strengths precisely those aspects you are weak in – find those people and team up with them!

6. Vary Approaches to Achievement: High achievers keep trying and changing until they find something that works for them. They are not afraid to push themselves to the limit because they have conditioned themselves into being highly adaptable to any set of circumstance. They vary their approaches to problems merely to find out what works best. They treat every setback as an opportunity to discover something new about themselves and about the environment in which they operate.

7. Bounce Back: All successful people have one thing in common – the ability to bounce back after an error, mistake, or failure. They view life as a series of outcomes. When the outcome was what they wanted, they figured out what they did right. When the outcome was not what they wanted, they figured out what they did so that they could avoid making the same move into the future. The ability to bounce back lives in your attitude towards the outcome.High achievers are able to keep moving forward no matter what happens because they know that failure does not make them a failure. They know that the only time they fail as a person is when they give up and walk away.

Each of the above techniques is embodied in the attitudes of highly effective people – people who are simultaneously high achievers. This was not some special gift they were born with because no amount of talent will equip you with the ability to just shrug off abject disappointment, frustration and loss. Every one of these people learned how to fail forward and formed habits of effectiveness in the process.’