When a gratitude practice can become bittersweet

photo of someone walking along a beach with a clear blue sky - image by author

If you have pursued personal reflection activities or journaling, you may have come across some version of gratitude exercises. The idea being to focus and think of things to be grateful for in your life daily to help you appreciate what you have now. This can help in getting my mindset into a more positive space.

I’m prone to moving into a negative headspace really easily. Depression is something I have dealt with most of my adult life. Thankfully, I had access to counselling services very early on and started developing the tools to change my mindset and stop self sabotaging my own emotions with negative reinforcement.

One of those tools has been gratitude. Particularly in recent times, I’m always very conscious of how blessed I am in my life with a loving family, relative financial stability and minimal trauma in my life until now (I resisted even typing that last bit because I know it comes for all of us eventually).

But, I’ve noticed there are times when my gratitude mentality can also turn into a negative reinforcement.

If you are genuinely grateful yet still feeling down or even depressed; it’s very easy to get into a spiral of feeling down about feeling down. When you know your life is actually very blessed, so you should have no reason to feel down about any of it. When things in your life are beyond anything you could have imagined at your lowest point, so why do you now crave something beyond your happiness now?

For myself right now, it’s career. I’ve written about this previously if you are interested, but in short I find myself in a situation and career which is beyond what I ever imagined for myself and provides for my family and lifestyle; and yet I’m lacking any real fulfilment from it.

I read an article recently which referred to the “disease of more”. I won’t repeat some of the themes within it but encourage you to read it as well. In short, my takeaway was that our desire to achieve or seek fulfilment is a cycle that keeps us always wanting more instead of being truly happy with our scenarios now.

Or more more simply; how the act of seeking self improvement may actually make us feel worse.

It’s an interesting way to look at things. And while I’m not about to throw out looking at ways to make my work feel more valuable to me; I am going to add the lessons from the disease of more to my mental health toolbox.

To take some of the bitterness away from the gratitude.

For those of us who don't have a career goal

It’s slightly odd to admit professionally that I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’ve been wanting to write something like this for a while now, but I’ve struggled with the ability to articulate it appropriately. From a young age, there’s a lot of focus on what do you want to be. How do you want to contribute to this world through your work, and obviously get paid well in the process.

In my work life I know how to execute my roles and am confident in my ability to do so, but not once have I had a clear vision of what I want or what’s next.

My least favourite question in interviews and performance reviews has been “where do you see yourself 1/3/5 years from now?”. I haven’t got a clue what’s in store in the next year or beyond; and I’ve come to terms with the possibility that I never will.

So looking back to where I’ve managed to be now; I wanted to write some thoughts for those in a similar position as me outlining my journey so far.

I must first make it clear that I’ve been grateful to be in environments that have allowed me to push and develop my skills, as well as provide opportunities for me to explore new avenues of work I may have never experienced otherwise. That hasn’t always been the case, but I’ve also had the support structure that always allowed me to pursue something better.

That really is a luxury that many struggle to obtain. I mention it because I don’t want this to come across as an “if I can do it, you can do it too!” article.

However I also have to recognise my own inputs in those opportunities, performing in my roles to an ability where people could identify the potential to provide new opportunities in the first place.

I’ve somehow also managed to have the confidence to take those opportunities (or leave unworkable situations) when appropriate, even when they have been difficult or involve a lot of unknowns. One time, that unknown was where my next job was going to be as a newly-wed with our first child on the way. That should have been extremely stressful, yet I remember having an unusual sense of assurance about the choices at the time.

Don’t get the wrong idea though as I’ve said no to some opportunities too, as well as being rejected for others. When presented it always has to be a decision that I’ve thought through based on my current needs but also my future needs as best as possible. Some of those past opportunities may have led to other great things; but I can’t dwell on what ifs.

Underlying all of this however seems to be an internal desire to not be stagnant; despite not knowing what I want to do at any given time. Even when I’ve been in the same roles for multiple years; there has still be progression, development and new skills being explored in each one. Which means that when the next opportunity has shown itself, I’m more ready than what I would’ve been if I just did the status quo.

If you’ve read this far, firstly thank you. But you may be thinking that this is leading to a conclusion that I’ve found a career path for me or that I’m fulfilled with my career. Far from it.

While I’m very good at my roles and it provides for my family; I don’t get any sense of purpose from it. This has not been something I’ve looked for in recent history, preferring to focus on usefulness and family stability.

However I would be lying if I said I haven’t been occasionally frustrated in the last year around the lack of purpose in my work.

It must be acknowledged that the search for purpose is very high in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; which requires my lower level needs to be mostly addressed. Again I recognise that this is an extremely privileged position to be in.

The pursuit of purpose however is severely hampered when you have no goal, no true vision of what you want to achieve professionally even if money was no object.

So where to now? That’s a good question I’m still trying to uncover. At this stage, I don’t think the answer is a drastic change of career searching for purpose when I have no clear career goals to begin with.

My focus is looking for areas of purpose in what I do now. I can’t tell you how yet, if I figure it out I’ll be sure to let you know.

I’d be curious to hear your stories, whether your story is in progress like mine or has already been fulfilled.