I launched our year's focus on health and wellbeing with the faculty and staff at Opening Meetings by asking everyone to write one to three aspects of working at Holton for which s/he is grateful. As many of you know, I am a great believer in the salutary effects of expressing gratitude. I came to this belief from reading positive psychology research which has found that engaging in exercises such as writing someone a note of gratitude (and, for the greatest impact, delivering the note in person) or keeping a gratitude journal makes people feel happy. Moreover, participants report feeling happy for months after engaging in the activity. As those of you who read this column regularly also know that I have personally put these steps into practice. It's been several years since I wrote a gratitude note (it's probably time to do it again), but I have been keeping a gratitude journal for years, spending a few minutes virtually every night recording reasons to be grateful from the preceding day. Once you start doing this, you realize that even on a bad day you can find cause for gratitude. Ultimately, it shifts the lens through which you view life to a positive place. Given the research and personal experience, I decided to help the faculty and staff begin the school year warm with happy sentiments.
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