Sunday is a good day to talk about gratitude.

For the religious, setting aside one day a week to rest and give thanks is foundational.  However, you don’t have to be a person of faith to relate to the idea of regularly scheduled gratitude.  A need to give and receive thanks is hard wired into our brains.

Despite this predisposition, it’s fair to say that no matter who you are, where you came from or what you believe about God and the universe, we often lack enough gratitude in our professional lives.

It’s easy to understand.  These days, the world often doesn’t put us in a thankful state of mind.  For those looking for their next opportunity, toiling in a job they hate, or working for a boss who overlooks them, it’s easy to feel like life isn’t doing them any favors.  Gratitude is often the last thing on your mind if you spend a good chunk of your Sundays wrestling with anxieties (the “Sunday Scaries”) about the coming week.

On the flip side, when your career is going great, it can be very tempting to succumb to the prideful belief that we are authors of our destiny.  Our success is purely the result of our hard work, smarts, talent and determination.  Gratitude is on your radar if you go through life believing no one gave you anything and that you earned everything you got.

In either case, it’s worth remembering that if you have a LinkedIn profile (as I imagine everyone reading this does) you’re already on second base in your career compared to the billions of people locked out of the economic advantages we take for granted.

My point here is not to sound like a parent admonishing a child to remember the starving kids in the world before throwing their half-eaten dinner in the garbage.  Not that such reminders aren’t important, they most certainly are.  But, to borrow the late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill’s famous quip about politics, when it comes to giving thanks and our careers “all gratitude is local.”

By that, I mean our frame of reference for giving thanks usually is tied to what’s immediately around us.  We weigh gratitude relative to others in our circles and our own expectations. 

Why haven’t I become a VP already?

How did that person get promoted over me? 

Why didn’t I get to go to the big client meeting or trade event? 

Why don’t the people on my team or my boss show more appreciation for all I do? 

Why don’t the people who work for me understand how much better off they are to have me as their leader as opposed to XYZ? 

This is gratitude as a “me thing” – a reflection of our tendency to view the world through the prism of our own egos.

But the whole point of gratitude is to rise above our own self-interest.  Giving thanks is meant to be a “we thing.”

True gratitude begins with an acknowledgement that no one works alone.  Whether you’re a CEO or a young person looking for their first break, you are part of a community, a culture.  Our successes, failures, and everything in between in our careers is connected to the work of at least one other person.

The teacher who first inspired you.

The boss who took a chance on hiring you.

The junior person on the team whose comment in a meeting inspired a new idea.

The colleague who covered for you when you had to leave early.

The people who clean the office, maintain the power grid or secure the building.

You get the point. 

Once we understand and accept the profound interconnectedness of our careers, we begin to see the critical role gratitude plays in building companies and cultures where people at all levels can thrive and succeed.

Expressing gratitude is much more than good manners, it’s putting aside, at least for a moment, our inherent self-interest and acknowledging that nothing happens in our careers without the efforts of someone else.

Also, gratitude is the perfect antidote to disaster-fantasizing and social media doom-scrolling.  If you’re down about the world or your current situation, put down the phone and get out of your head.  Make a list of ten things you can be grateful for.  Doing so always helps us see that no matter what we’re going through in our careers, things are not as bad as they seem.

Spending a few minutes each week, perhaps on a Sunday, is a great way for each of us to get better at practicing gratitude.  You may not see a big change immediately, but if you keep doing it consistently your future self, not to mention the people you work with, will thank you for it.