It was January 2019, precisely the 3rd week of January when I was sitting in a fairly large conference room along with my colleagues as we had come together for our monthly Total Rewards team meeting. This was our first Total Rewards team meeting as a group since many of us were new members in the team, the Total Rewards function itself was a newly formed function at the organization. After the group completed going through our updates and action items, and as we were wrapping up the meeting, the Head of the function asked everyone a question, “How are you feeling today?”. And she asked us to describe in one-word how each of us was feeling. We started going round the table and began to hear words like, “busy”, “stressed”, “overwhelmed”, “crazy”, “resource constrained (yes it was 2 words, but allowed :))”, and these words kept repeating themselves regardless of whether they came from a team member sitting in the room with us or those joining us remote via conference call. When it finally came my turn, I immediately said “Blessed”, someone else couple seats after me said “happy”, someone else said “good”, and the Head of our function being the last person to state how she was feeling, said “Thankful”!

Now, to give you some context, our Total Rewards Team is a group of 18 individuals. Of those 18, only 4 of us (22%) gave responses that were positive and uplifting such as “happy”, “blessed” and “thankful”. And the remaining 78% responded in the more negative or emotionally draining or mentally stressed way. After the meeting wrapped up and we all went about our own ways, I began reflecting on everyone’s answers was trying my best to understand why each of us responded the way we did. As the day progressed I got caught up in the daily activities however this particular exercise and its outcome had stuck in my head through today, which is when I decided to write about it. It came as a surprise to me that less than 1/4th of employees were looking at things from the positive side of the spectrum, whereas more than 3/4th of the employees were looking at things more from the negative side of the spectrum. While I did not get the opportunity to sit down with the other 3 and ask them why they responded the way they did (happy, good, thankful), I decided to dig deep into my own thinking to understand why I responded to it with the word “Blessed”!. After some deep thoughts and research I came to the conclusion that, the reason I responded that way was because I had chosen to focus on the positives in my life instead of the things that would otherwise bog me down or give me an impression that things in my life weren’t going in the right direction and everything was negative.

What you choose to focus on in your day to day and what you allow to bog you down in your daily life has a huge impact on your overall being and feeling not just for that day but for the days that follow. By choosing to focus on the positives in your life, you are not only choosing to always keep a bright outlook for yourself, but you are also in the process, helping brighten those that are around you. Let’s walk through an example here to really understand this idea: In 2019, I was only 3 weeks into my role at the organization, and my calendar was full of meetings. We were getting into our most busiest season (performance and comp planning) and I had a new team of 9 individuals, who I was just getting to know, a major planning cycle upcoming in the immediate weeks, and local and global partners and stakeholders I had to meet, align and get approvals from for the upcoming planning cycle. If I had chosen to only focus on the enormity of the task, I would have easily given into one of those feelings described earlier – stressed, overwhelmed, resource constrained, etc. Instead, I chose to appreciate the enormity of the situation, and also acknowledged that given the role I have stepped into, this is on ongoing part of my life and will continue to be. So I can either embrace it, Thank the Almighty for this blessing and plan how I go about achieving each of those outcomes, or I can just throw my hands up in the air, and complain every single day by only focusing on the stress and anxiety it will add on to me. I chose to be in the “positivity” camp and hence responded the way I did.

Leaving aside this workplace example, how many of us thinks of the little things in our life that we are blessed with and should all be thankful for? Just being able to see with the 2 eyes that have been given to us, being able to walk with the 2 legs that we have, being able to eat with our hands, being able to breathe the fresh air, being able to sleep at night and then wake up again in the morning to another beautiful day, all of these are blessings that only a few think about and appreciate. Every time we are asked the question, “How are we doing, or how are we feeling?”, do we take the time to deeply reflect through our lives and truly appreciate every single blessing that has been provided to us? Over the past year and half, we have all seen how the world almost comes to a standstill when a large pandemic hits. With this in the backdrop, have we all taken the time to truly sit down and reflect upon the blessings we have been bestowed and Thank the Almighty for them?

There were times when Prophet Muhammad SAW only had a few dates and water to go by a whole day. He still continued to feel blessed even in this situation and continued to Thank the Almighty for what he had and a beautiful life he was given. While we all cannot be like him, can we all at least strive to adopt the perspective our Prophet had (SAW) and decide to focus on the positives and advance to a bright tomorrow?

A famous Danish-French Impressionist once said:

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing!

So let’s turn the page and promise ourselves to see life from a different perspective and be Thankful for our Blessings!