Gratitude: Two small words change everything

team clapping together and looking happy featured
Thank you: it’s such a small thing to say and these two small words cost you absolutely nothing and yet make a huge difference to how and if people remember you – and respond to you.

Thanking people is often the difference that makes the difference as to whether people do what you want, get back to you, take on your opinion and it certainly affects the way they do what you ask them to.

To be noticed and remembered for the right reasons, we need to make people feel appreciated and an easy, effective and natural way to make people feel you appreciate them is simply to look for more ways to say ‘thank you’ and to say it more often. It’s simple and it works in so many ways.

Once you start to look for how and where you can be more grateful and more appreciative of what people are doing (not just for you but around you), you’ll discover lots more opportunities to say ‘thank you’. And, interestingly, staying open and looking for ways to say ‘thank you’, to be grateful. Even if you don’t always like what’s happened, there’s always a lesson to learn.

  • ‘Thank you for your help’
  • ‘Thank you for thinking of me’
  • ‘Thank you for letting me know’
  • ‘Thanks in advance for doing that by Friday…’

Telling people you know they’ll do something and thanking them before they’ve done it, that’s where commitment and consistency, those powerful influencers, live.

‘Thank you’ also helps even if you don’t like what you’re being told. Try saying “ah, thanks for letting me know” or “hmm, thanks for telling me that, now what about etc.” If you say ‘thank you’ first, it means that the first thing you say isn’t negative and crucially, it buys you some precious time to decide what you do want to say.

Defined in the dictionary as ‘a polite expression used when acknowledging a gift, service or compliment or when accepting or refusing an offer’, saying ‘thank you’ for something you don’t want or don’t want to do is a really key piece in learning how to say ‘no’ without upsetting people. “Thank you for the opportunity and…”

There’s a great knock-on effect from saying ‘thank you’ more as well; it makes you feel better too. It’s that whole ‘attitude of gratitude’ and it truly works. Simple.

So many people mutter to themselves ‘well, they’re just doing their job, so why should I say thank you?’ or tell me ‘I was so pleased with how they did that’ and yet when I ask the person ‘did you tell them you’re pleased?’ they invariably say the person was either doing what they were supposed to or they just assumed the person knew they were pleased. Uh oh.

A client told me recently that, as a service provider, when a customer phones her and says ‘thank you’ after she’s sorted things out for them, they immediately get better service from her next time they need her help.

As she then said ‘everyone likes to be appreciated, we’ve all got a lot going on’ and as William Arthur Ward, the famous American poet said ‘Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.’

There you go, simple and easy. Thank you!

 

I’d love to hear what you think. You can leave me a comment or a note here. Here’s an immediate and practical Gift of you!  A complimentary copy of “Do You Have Trouble Saying NO?”

Let me walk you through the mindsets, strategies and exact words and phrases to use to ensure you keep stronger, more assertive boundaries for yourself and your time without upsetting yourself, or the other person.  Also, you’ll receive my twice-monthly eZine filled with more tips, tools, ideas and news.

About the author

Kay White is our Show Up & Sparkle blogger. Known as the Savvy & Influential Communication Expert for Ambitious Women in Business, Kay shows professional women how to attract promotion, recognition and rewards at work without feeling they have to ’sell their soul. Kay shows her clients, who are corporate career women at all different stages of their careers, how to naturally attract more income and opportunity all while being true to themselves. Combining strategic moves with influencing skills plus compelling and assertive language and powerful mindsets, Kay draws on her own 20+ years corporate career in the very male-dominated world of London insurance broking. She started at 18 as a Secretary and left as a Director to start her own business. Hosting an annual 3-day Event for corporate women “Show Up; Sparkle & Be Heard LIVE” Kay encourages and shows women how to be the best, most valuable version of themselves. Kay is author of the Number 1 Best-Seller “The A to Z of Being Understood” and you can connect and find out more from Kay at : www.kaywhite.com.
Visa - WeAreTheCity - Pioneer 20 - nominations open
WeAreTech Festival 2024 advert

Upcoming Events

march, 2024

Job Board Banner

Related Posts