“To be grateful in the world, and to wish happiness for everyone. This is greater and better than every good work, and no commotion whatever is necessary for its performance.”
The holiday season can put extra pressure on all of us, making what should be a happy time, a miserable time instead.
At 10Eighty we believe Christmas is a time for celebration, reflection and gratitude. As we enjoy the festivities with gift-giving and other good things it is also a time to count our blessings. We love a celebration, in particular, we think it’s important to recognise and celebrate success, achievements, progress and accomplishments.
Count your blessings
Despite another difficult year there is really a lot to be grateful for. Practicing gratitude regularly has been shown to increase positive emotions and improve well-being. “Three good things” is a classic gratitude exercise which asks you to write down three good things each day, whether big or small.
Action for Happiness report that it has been shown that gratitude is important for how good we feel psychologically and socially. It increases how much positive emotion we feel and decreases negative emotion. It raises our overall satisfaction with life and helps us have an overall positive outlook. It has also been shown to reduce health complaints and help us cope with difficulties. It even seems to reduce the importance we place on material goods. And contrary to what we may think, it also appears that it could increase our ability to achieve our goals.
Counting your blessings can improve your wellbeing. And a shout out for the heroes of the NHS who put their lives at risk to care for total strangers.
Peace and goodwill
There are a lot of stories in the media about retail and office workers who are verbally, and sometimes physically assaulted because they asked patrons to wear a mask; and stories about entitled people making unreasonable demands. Many people seem colder, less patient, more irate, more exacting.
The word “goodwill” in Greek is eudokia. It means kindly intent, satisfaction.
Be kind is a good motto to adopt for the coming year. Kindness can have real benefits for mental health and wellbeing. The Mental Health Foundation did survey of 4,246 UK adults aged 18+ and found that 63% of UK adults agree that when other people are kind it has a positive impact on their mental health, and the same proportion agree that being kind to others has a positive impact on their mental health.
Season’s greetings from the team at 10Eighty, we’re glad to know you and we’d love to hear from you. Keep safe and healthy and cheerful and we hope to meet up in the New Year.
