The Power of Gratitude
Expressing gratitude doesn’t always come easily to lawyers—it just isn’t a big part of our work culture. We expect our colleagues (especially those who are junior to us) to do their jobs and meet or exceed our expectations, so when they deliver, as expected, we don’t thank them. They are just doing their jobs. The approach is often that if you are doing a good job, other lawyers give you more work. Being overworked therefore means that you are doing well!
And clients don’t thank us much, either. When I was in private practice, I don’t recall being thanked by clients. The exception in my world was closing dinners where self-congratulations were the order of the day, along with closing mementos. I got rid of the Lucite tombstones many years ago, but kept two brass clocks and a hand-painted duck—none of the companies exist anymore nor do most of the underwriters.
Usually, as lawyers, we do the work, issue an invoice, and clients pay it (with few or many nudges.) Clients put the cheque in the mail (or electronic transfer nowadays) which was their way of expressing satisfaction or gratitude. It was even better when they retained us again—way better than just words when you are building your practice!
I noticed a difference when I moved in-house, where employees in my client groups regularly expressed thanks for work that I did or projects I contributed to. It struck me that clients who aren’t paying for your services are more included to say thank you. I became more cognizant of the value of thanking people for their efforts.
While I was running my human resources/employment law practice, I worked with a variety of human resource specialists on different projects and presentations. I remember attending a program where a colleague presented about in-the-moment recognition as well as formal recognition programs. One such presentation was to supervisors at a field location of an oil and gas company. When we had delivered the same suite of presentations to head office leaders, I saw managers nodding about in-the-moment recognition, but the presenter was not getting the same affirmation at the field location.
After the formal presentation, one supervisor raised his hand. He said, more or less, “I don’t know why we need to stop and say thank you or provide spontaneous things like movie tickets. Employees are paid to do their jobs, and if they do it, I don’t have to thank them for doing it.”
It was helpful to have the issue called out succinctly—culture matters—and I am not sure whether the presenter’s explanation of the link between positive feedback and motivation tool had any impact.
At Assist, we are fortunate that many lawyers and students who use our services thank us. We also receive thank-yous as we head into Thanksgiving weekend from a couple of firms who have incorporated gratitude into their fall activities. It is wonderful when someone thanks you.
I think that gratitude is especially important in the legal community where we have widespread negativity. Lawyers seem to fall into patterns where we feel sorry for ourselves and compare ourselves to people whose lives seem perfect—while also speculating about which of us has the worst workload or interactions with nasty lawyers both internally and externally.
We may develop our negative mindsets through our “prudent” thinking practices, where we anticipate all of the negative positive outcomes and then we ruminate on them and how awful our lives could be if they happen. We generally spend very little time expressing gratitude for the work and opportunities that we have—we are just too busy doing the work.
Law favours negative thinking—our job is to identify all potential risks and mitigate against them. We call this “prudence,” not a glamourous word in the 21st century, but a lawyer who doesn’t think prudently is going to have a short career. Negative thinking may be linked with the high rates of depression that lawyers experience (https://www.lawyerswithdepression.com/articles/depressions-negative-thinking/) while optimistic thinking can lead to liability.
So, I understand if you are feeling cynical (a common lawyer trait) as we head into Thanksgiving and people like me are suggesting that you express gratitude.
Many of us took at least one undergraduate psychology courses (Psych 101 or its equivalent) which generally focused on dysfunction—it is really interesting to learn how people develop mental health conditions and serious disorders. Just look at television, where Criminal Minds has rebooted. People are fascinated with the dark side of the human psyche.
But there is also an academic field called positive psychology which studies how we thrive. This is where we find data about proactive strategies for well-being. Positive psychology tells us that we need about three positive emotions for every negative emotion, which sounds great but begs the question of how we bring positive emotions into our lives to outweigh the negative emotions that draw most of our bandwidth.
According to leading positive psychology researchers, there are three principal ways to acquire positive emotions:
- Expressing gratitude
- Giving to others
- Engaging in activities or with people we enjoy.
And all three positive emotion building strategies may be on the menu this weekend!
As lawyers, we tend to overthink everything. I suspect that when someone tells you that expressing gratitude is a good practice, you—like me--begin to think about what the best way is to do this—do you need a designated notebook? Does thinking gratitude work as well as writing it down? Are there credible resources that cover these topics, so we don’t look like gratitude newbies (imposter syndrome about well-being!)? All of these thoughts lead to analysis paralysis!
This weekend, you can express gratitude in whatever way works for you. You may not find the perfect way of expressing gratitude on your first try, but it doesn’t matter. There is no external benchmark or evaluation. You don’t have to be good at it the first time you try expressing gratitude consciously, and the “fake it until you make it” maxim applies.
For ideas, visit Assist’s Thanksgiving blog last year which features ten potential gratitude statements for lawyers.
Depending on how you celebrate Thanksgiving and long weekends in general, you may already be incorporating giving to others—giving to others is a natural extension of being grateful for what we have and recognizing that we have more than many other people. And just like expressing gratitude, there is no perfect way to do it.
We often think of volunteering to serve meals to unhoused people as a pinnacle of service. This is admirable, but you don’t get more “positivity points” by choosing to do something that seems particularly hard or onerous. It can be as simple as helping someone with something in-the-moment—you see an older person trying to carry something heavy and you offer to help them with it. Inviting an isolated person to share dinner with your family/friend group. Saying something to kind to someone who looks like they are having a bad day works, as do all random acts of kindness. These are all ways of giving to others.
According to Dr. Brian Forbes, the head of Assist’s psychological services provider,
Research has found that performing acts of kindness reduces stress, increases happiness, reduces blood pressure, reduces pain, boosts health and increases longevity. In essence, spreading kindness not only benefits others by helping them to feel better, it also benefits the giver.
The benefit of being kind goes far beyond creating positive emotions!
The final source of positive emotions is doing things you enjoy with people you like. Sounds simple, right—but sometimes law culture discounts the time we spend on hobbies and with friends as lost opportunities to bill. I suspect that we dilute the positive emotion benefits of happy experiences when we layer on guilt for being out of our offices.
But spending time on hobbies or with our favourite people is not a waste of time—it is an important part of filling our own tanks. You may have heard the expression “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” Regardless of what type of law we practice, we are generally helpers—our clients, whether human beings or legal entities—come to us with their problems because of our professional knowledge and skills. But we can lose our ability to help clients when we are unwell. So, this Thanksgiving, please take time to refresh yourself. It isn’t selfish—it is essential for us to be able to continue to deliver quality legal services.
It is also supported by Phase 2 of the National Study on the Psychological Health Determinants for Canadian Legal Professionals which was released today. In the Alberta Research Report, study authors note “Given the mentally demanding nature of their work, legal professionals need a certain time to decompress before they can turn their attention to other responsibilities.”
I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please consider consciously expressing gratitude as part of your over-arching well-being strategy. Be well!
Loraine