Appreciation Builds Relationships

Look around your world; do you sincerely show appreciation to everyone around you? When last did you flash a smile at the lady at the checkout counter at the grocery store and thank her for her time? It costs nothing to be gracious and show appreciation to those around you. Not only does the recipient of you appreciation feel better after receiving it, but you as the person showing the appreciation does too.

Your smile and friendly thank you to the lady at the checkout counter, cost you nothing, but gives so much to both of you. Give appreciation a whirl, it will astound you how much better you feel all day, when you are constantly looking for ways to appreciate all the people around you. It will also be incredible how much better the people around you will treat you in return and the positive way they will begin to respond to you all day.

Appreciating others is one of the principles of success, which draws little attention. Up to 88% of employees who leave their jobs do so because they feel unacknowledged and unappreciated. Consider the impact of a lack of appreciation on your personal relationships! “Whether you are an sales professional, entrepreneur, leader, teacher, parent, coach, or simply a friend, if you want to be successful with other people, you must “Master the art of Appreciation”

Appreciation Builds Influence
If you want to build influence with other people, where you can create deeper, more trusting, mutually beneficial relationships, in a modality of fair exchange, you must learn the art of always, uncovering ways to show appreciation. Consider when you’ve been on the receiving end of uncommon appreciation, when someone has made you feel appreciated and special. What was the impact of that act of appreciation on the relationship? How did you feel about that person? How do you feel now about the impact that person has had on your life? Did you not build real and meaningful connection with that person?

Appreciation “Inspires”
There is a major mismatch between how much employees value appreciation and how much their employers recognize it as an important factor, when it comes to employee satisfaction. Studies have shown that employees consistently place “Appreciation” above anything else, as the number one influencer, of their level of motivation at work. Yet their employers consistently place it as only the eighth most important factor, below wages, job security, opportunities for promotion, and even discipline. Wow could there possibly be a greater mismatch between the two parties.

Think about the people who could support you towards achieving your goals and who could support you to create your ideal life. How do you appreciate them? What kind of impact do you think, an increase in genuine authentic appreciation from your side, have on their desire to be a member of your support team?

Individualize your appreciation for the most impact
In order to have the most impact when showing appreciation, get to know the individual you want to show the appreciation to and try to consider the most appropriate way the individual likes to be appreciated. Everyone has a dominant or different way, in which their brain takes in information and processes it. Some people are more auditory, whilst others are more visual, or kinesthetic in the way they interact with the world.

If you are attempting to show appreciation to someone by telling them thank you, yet they are dominantly a visual person, who needs to see it, your “Thank You” won’t have the impact that it could have had, had you chosen a more visual means of communicating your appreciation to them.

Gary Chapman, author of “The Five Love Languages”, suggests that you observe how the other person shows appreciation or gives love to understand better which “language” they prefer.

To uncover the way they like to be appreciated, You can also ask them questions like:

When have you felt the most loved in your life?
Could you describe that to me?
What did the other person do that made you feel loved?
It often takes a bit of trial and error to discover the best way to show appreciation to someone. But if you are truly committed to finding the right medium for your message of appreciation, because the person is important enough to you, you will eventually get it right!

Appreciation Activates the Law of Intention
One of the reasons I call appreciation one of the “secrets of Success”, is that it often pays dividends in indirect, yet very real, and unexpected ways. As you know, we attract more of what we focus on. What we think about, and act upon, we eventually bring about. As crazy as it seems, if we’re constantly focused on the things we don’t like about our lives, we’ll tend to attract more of those things into our experience.

So the opposite is also true, if we are in the mode of appreciation and gratitude, where we focus on all the things we like and appreciate and are grateful for in our lives, we will attract more of the same into our experience. When we show gratitude and appreciation we become more “attractive” to others, people want to be around us more!

Be Generous when showing your Appreciation
Action Idea: Showing appreciation starts by you increasing your awareness of what others are doing around you. Even if the actions of the people around you, don’t directly benefit you, learn to be aware of all the things others people do, which deserve to be appreciated.

Survey your world and ask these questions:

Has someone created a thing of beauty?
Did you overhear a mother speaking kindly and patiently to her whining child?
Is the clerk in the checkout line dealing with rushed customers with grace?
What are the ways that you can be in the mode of appreciation throughout your day?
How can you appreciate others around you?
Appreciation Starts with You First
Do you appreciate yourself? To really enjoy the benefits of showing appreciation to others, you must first learn the art of showing appreciation to the most important person in your life first, namely, YOU. In addition to appreciating what’s happening in your external environment, be sure to acknowledge and appreciate yourself. Even if you are looking around your world, showing gratitude and appreciation to others, yet you are constantly berating yourself or beating yourself up internally, you are not creating an environment to invite abundance into your experience. Yes show appreciation to others, but never forget the most important person to show appreciation to and take care of, namely you.