Showing appreciation ...

Appreciation is a central human need - and appreciation is so much more than reward and praise

Appreciation always starts with yourself!

You are the pivot of your being. The basis for the whole topic of appreciation is yourself - This includes

• self-awareness is indispensable and vital in this context
• ... your awareness of what a unique person you are
• ... with all your individual characteristics, gifts and abilities
• ... your way of expressing yourself, acting and reacting.

I firmly believe you can not honestly appreciate others if you do not appreciate yourself and if you not really see and even partly understand yourself. Without this 'starting point' appreciation is just a compliment, a praise, and commendation. 

Awareness and appreciation for yourself has different facets  ...

• ... for your unique combination of personality, character, traits and skills: your courage in a given situation, your perseverance, your dedication, your humor, your mind, and way seeing and dealing with things
• ... for your body: Your body has its own 'paradigms', 'functionalities', 'pattern' ... your constitution, nutrition, care, treatment & training, and change 
• ... for what you do: - This includes valuing yourself for - that you have given yourself the best you can for yourself, your partner and friends, your family, at work, and in other places. - That sometimes you couldn't act differently, even if you wanted to. You lacked serenity, or certain insights or skills at the time. You were only able to acquire them later. Or you're just getting into it now.
• ... and being aware and appreciating yourself means setting boundaries: - It is not helpful to do everything that is required and desired by the environment. There are healthy limits. Anyone who values ​​themselves should accept and know their limits and senses where to stop. Out of love for oneself and out of appreciation for the other person.

Perceive appreciation and accepting appreciation of others 

Being able to perceive that people value you or what they value about you is not something everyone has from the cradle, as the manner born. Childhood experiences can play a role. Fortunately, we have a socially plastic brain into old age or and for sure - we can work on it. As a rule, we can prepare ourselves for new experiences at any time and replace old reaction patterns with new ones. Above all, this requires training. Sometimes phased support is helpful to speed up the process.

Accepting appreciation from others needs to be learned too. The more feedback you received from many different people and the more often certain qualities and skills were highlighted, the more you can and will feel for yourself how valuable and unique you are.

Appreciate others

It's much easier to do this when you have self-esteem and compassion. We all had extremely stressful phases of life - and you made it - didn't you? And now acknowledge your accomplishments at these times. Whenever I meet a stressed, irritable person today, it is perfectly clear to me that he or she – for whatever reason – is just above their healthy performance limit. Then I can appreciate them as a person who maybe tries to do justice to many things at the same time and is still trying to do his best in the situation that s/he can.

Express appreciation for others - If I judge myself severely, rebuke myself that I'm not good enough and should better deal with any stress calmly, I'm also impatient with others and don't appreciate them much.

If I can draw on my own experience as a reminder and be in appreciation of myself, I can behave differently. Then, in the situation described above, I express that I understand her or his tricky situation.

Appreciate life

I think a lot of people had forgotten appreciating life over the years, it had gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of supposed everyday duties. My life throw me a number of curve ball - I almost drown, fighting about 3 hours against a steam, and two more borderline situations between Life and Death. But as well in my environment I accompanied a dying soldier, comrade in arms, I lost one of my best friends as I was a young man, I lost my wife (the reason why I write this blog) - and I know from people until they were seriously ill - that they were reminded of how precious life is. What a gift to be able to breathe, to move, to be in contact with nature and people. What our friends and family means to us. Being able and allowed to work at all. That life is a short guest appearance and that every moment is worth experiencing consciously, because it will not come back. And before we know it, it's over. I am deeply grateful for everything and my experience, because since I consciously perceive and appreciate the precious life, my days are most often full of joy. And a lot of things that were important before have become unimportant. Everyone has different moments of appreciation for life - it is immensely enriching to think about it again and again.

Consciously enjoying life, its pleasures and beauties and expressing joy.

Sharing this joy with others, letting them participate and thereby intensifying and increasing the joy.

Finding creative expression in words, design, art, nature, architecture and projects - find and enjoy what you love

Show appreciation where ever you can in private life and at work as well.

As already written - we want to be seen and recognized - valued - with what we are, what we do and what we have achieved. When used correctly, appreciation releases enormous power and has a motivating effect. 

And as well as already mentioned - However, carelessly squandered praise according to the watering can principle has the exact opposite effect: one senses the intention behind it and is upset. Therefore, therefore and therefore: How real appreciation is expressed that goes beyond mere lip service...

Appreciation: Don't forget gratitude

And most importantly, say “thank you” more often. Genuine gratitude goes beyond the character of simple praise. It conveys respect as well as recognition for the effort that someone else has made and shows that you don't take it for granted.

You can't say thank you often enough - and it costs so little. Therefore, force and promote a corporate culture in which people say “please” and “thank you” as a matter of course. A person who feels valued will always do more than is expected of them.

Show authentic recognition

Of course, a respectful and polite tone among one another is the eternal basis of all communication and positive corporate culture. Authentic appreciation is also evident in various forms and facets in day-to-day work. In order to be perceived as such, however, it needs three essential requirements:

Appreciation is individual, precise, and always emotional

People hate the feeling of being just a minor cog in the works – or (even worse) the spare tire. It's the same with praise from a watering can: Even if it's a warm shower, you don't feel better afterwards, you just feel wet. Therefore, be sure to address the appreciative words and gestures to the person it affects. The recipient must feel: "I mean that personally." Feelings are stronger than factual arguments. The mouth can say a lot, but the heart speaks to us. 

We all need appreciation and friends especially when time is getting rough ... but