Learn to Appreciate

Yes, you read it right – Did you ever appreciate others? How many times you give appreciation to others when people did good job or great things for you? How often you do it? Do you know that there are some people have never received any appreciation or reward in their lifetime for their good deeds? We are very quick in finding faults but at the same way are we very quick in finding good and appreciating???

Appreciation also means thanks and gratitude, recognition of the quality, value, significance of people and things. Learning to appreciate others can help us live a better life and become a better person.

By saying “I appreciate you” is not a rocket science, you never lost anything by saying it. Appreciating others helps you to enhance your skills;

To help you have a better understanding of appreciation, I want to share below this story with you. Hope you can learn something from it.

A man came home from work and found his 3 children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers around garden, The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog. Walking in the door, he found an even bigger mess. In the front room, the cartoon channel was going on on the TV with blasting speakers, the family room was full with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on floor.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife.

He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys were scattered over the floor.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?”

She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world do I do all day?”

“Yes,” was his incredulous reply.                       

She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it.”

Moral of the story: We draw conclusions very easily without judging properly. He came to know the importance of the person once he is affected.

Seldom everyone in our day to day life both in professional and personal life do like this.

Have you recently appreciated a co-worker or your employee at work?

Is appreciating your employees part of your leadership plan and process?

How many managers are actually using appreciation to energize their workforce? And, why they should be doing it on a regular basis – appreciation and recognition are critical to talent retention.

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, “Make me feel important.” Never forget this message when working with people.
– Mary Kay Ash

Compliment often and with Honesty

Just saying “Good job” might not be the best way to get the praise across. Display sincerity and be specific in praising your employees. Send an email to the employee and if you wish CC to the HR personnel or another senior manager in your division. On being specific, mention the specific task or the project you were impressed with for this particular employee, if the employee is a good team player, add that to the testimonial.
Don’t be a miser when showering words of praises towards your employees or coworkers, and neither should you present false praise; be honest and to the point.
Empathetic employers have happier employees; invest wisely in your people and your company shall retain best talents and render the best in performance.

• The basic idea is simple: People will work harder and more enthusiastically for an appreciative boss, and companies that praise topnotch performance are more profitable than those that don’t.

Therefore, Both in professional and personal life, before you can learn how to express appreciation toward others, you must first learn how to feel appreciative.

Take these steps to learn to feel appreciation:

1. Appreciate the world around you: Take a few moments in each day to notice useful or beautiful things around you and smile at them. Imagine what the world would be like without them. Take a deep breath and be thankful for their existence (and keep smiling!).
2. Express Your appreciation of world to others:Tell a friend how much you appreciate breezy spring days or hot tea in the morning. Learn to verbalize your appreciation.
3. Practice appreciating yourself:At the end of each day, ask yourself “What can I truly be proud of today?”. Say it aloud or write it down. Practice recognizing in yourself the type of things you want to appreciate in others.
4. Express appreciation to others: Tell people that you appreciate them and why. If it feels strange, start with people where you have few power dynamics or attachments, then move onto employees, colleagues and loved ones.

An interesting experiment is to try to say something nice to or about someone every day for a month. It encourages us to change our perspective so that we notice others' good qualities. Doing so also improves our relationships tremendously.

Try to praise the person whom you don't like very much.

We need to try to cultivate the habit of noticing what is beautiful, brave, struggling, hopeful, kind, and inspiring in others. If we pay attention to that, we won't be focusing on their faults. Our joyful attitude and speech that result from this will enrich those around us and will nourish happiness and love within ourselves. The quality of our own lives thus depends on whether we find fault with our experience or see what is beautiful in it.

Seeing the faults of others is about missing opportunities to love. When we are habituated with mentally picking out the faults of others, we tend to do this with ourselves as well. This can lead us to devalue our entire lives.

So friend's be happy , appreciate others, spread love and live to the fullest.