For better or worse, we live in a viral world. A world where our interconnectedness can lead to great moments of shared laughter or contagious fear. A world where hope or disease can spread at rates unseen in human history. It’s in that environment that the benefits of gratitude matter more than ever.
Gratitude, especially gratitude deliberately shared with other human beings, has the power to override the fear in our lives. It allows us to see our worth through the eyes of others, not just through the carnival mirror of our own self-doubt. The benefits of gratitude are so profound that the simple act of telling someone they matter to you can vaccinate them against hatred, spur their creativity, destroy aloneness and inspire them to see the worth in others.
Most importantly, gratitude, like fear, can create its own momentum. It naturally perpetuates itself and spreads with minimal additional effort. It creates in both its giver and its recipient, a desire to replicate the moment. To experience that sense of connection again. It is contagious in all the right ways.
#1 Benefit of Gratitude: The Exponential Elimination of Fear
Fear is one of the great catalysts for the world’s pain. It’s often from a place of fear that we lie, steal, hoard, cheat or isolate. Our need for survival, which is more often fueled by fear than by facts, allows us to justify virtually anything. Most of us would agree that a world with less fear is a safer, more collaborative world where the best of who we are is able to emerge.
At the Thanks A Billion Project, we believe that gratitude conquers fear. That it is impossible to be afraid and to be grateful at the same time. We believe that science and human experience show that the human brain is literally incapable of feeling deep joy and paralyzing fear at the same time.
This means that the biggest benefit of gratitude is that it allows us to regain control over our brain. It empowers us to begin operating from a place of creativity, instead of singularly focusing upon our own survival. If we want the world to be a better place, we need to make it a more thankful place.
Exponential Appreciation to Unlock the Benefits of Gratitude
The power of “doubling” and its effect on our world will blow your mind if you stop and think about it. For example, if just one person starts a scary rumor and shares it with one new person each day and each of those people do the same, it can create a tidal wave of fear.
Here’s how that works. After sharing the scary rumor on the first day, now two people know. The next day, after both of them share it with someone else, four people now know. Then 8, 16, 32 and 64 people over the next few days.
In ten days, over 1,000 people know the rumor. After 20 days, over ONE MILLION PEOPLE know the rumor. After just one month, over ONE BILLION people could be making a decision based on someone’s negative gossip.
WHAT IF, the same thing happened, but with people telling each other “Thank You” for being part of my life? What if reaching out to someone today to say that they mattered, made you laugh or became that domino number one in a chain reaction of positivity?
Would the benefits of gratitude be enough to offset the fear in the world? Would it be enough to inspire people to create solutions instead of being part of the problem?
The Thanks A Billion Project thinks so. We think YOU can plant seeds of gratitude TODAY that will make an exponential difference in a very short time. We think the effect will be even more profound if you tell people what you’re doing, about this project and about our wonderfully audacious goal.
Help us spread gratitude across our world. Today’s Challenge... Get the gratitude ball rolling with the simple act of publicly announcing your goal on social media of saying “thank you” thirty times over the next thirty days and inviting your friends to participate. That’s how we start an exponential wave of gratitude.
Sign up for our YouTube channel or follow us on social media where we’ll be providing you new ideas of who to thank and how to thank them. Invite your friends, family and co-workers to join us and become part of the solution.
We cannot do this without you. Join Us!