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Mental Health

Adam Grant explains that a simple tweak in how you journal can boost your motivation

"Part of our motivation comes from feeling capable of making a difference."

Adding contributions to a gratitude journal can help make you happier and more motivated.

Some years ago, the idea of keeping a "gratitude journal" became all the rage. Research indicates that cultivating a sense of gratitude by "counting our blessings" can make us feel happier and more satisfied with our lives, and gratitude journal is a purposeful, systematic way to do that.

Happiness is great, but what about motivation? Does gratitude journaling make you more motivated? According to organizational psychologist Adam Grant, the answer is no. But there is something else you can add to your journal to increase your motivation—contributions.

"If you just do a gratitude journal, you end up passive," Grant told the Last Neanderthals podcast. "You're reflecting on what you're fortunate to receive from others. Jane Dutton and I studied this and we found that people end up more motivated after they do 'contribution journals,' where. you think about what you did for others. Part of our motivation comes from feeling capable of making a difference."

Grant said he likes to keep a journal that includes both gratitude and contributions. "You do your gratitude list, three things I'm grateful for, and then three ways I was useful to other people as well."

As a researcher at The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, Grant teamed up with Jane Dutton of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan to research how reflecting on giving and receiving impacts pro-social behavior. The question at the heart of their study was whether reflecting on receiving (gratitude) or on giving (contribution) would make a person behave in a more helpful way toward others.

gratitude journal, adam grant, motivation, contributions journalAdam Grant suggests adding contributions to your gratitude journal.Photo credit: Canva

"In field and laboratory experiments, we found that participants who reflected about giving benefits voluntarily contributed more time to their university, and were more likely to donate money to natural-disaster victims, than were participants who reflected about receiving benefits," the authors wrote. "When it comes to reflection, giving may be more powerful than receiving as a driver of prosocial behavior."

In fact, it appears that reflecting on giving becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. "Merely thinking about recent experiences of giving encourages people to give more time and money," Grant and Dutton wrote. The more we recall ways we've contributed, the more motivated we are to contribute.

volunteering, giving, motivation, adam grantVolunteering is one way to contribute.Photo credit: Canva

As it turns out, giving is also good for your mental health. According to the Mental Health Foundation, that helping others can reduce stress and improve mood, self-esteem and happiness. It's one of the ways people can build connections, which helps prevent loneliness and isolation, and can increase our sense of optimism and satisfaction.

The Mental Health Foundation shares some suggestions for people wondering how they might contribute more:

- Volunteer for a local community organization
- Offer your expertise and support as a mentor for those who are struggling
- Check-in with a neighbor
- See if there’s anything you can do to support your children’s school or nursery—offer to read stories for example
- Involve your friends and neighbors in community projects
- Offer to skill-share with a friend—you could teach guitar, dance or a new recipe
- Call a friend that you haven’t spoken to for a while
- Tell a family member how much you love and appreciate them
- Offer a listening ear to someone who simply wants to talk

helping in the garden, volunteering, being helpful, contributions journalHelping doesn't have to be complicated or elaborate.Photo credit: Canva

Contributions don't have to be huge or dramatic to be impactful, both to ourselves and others. It's not like you have to find a cure for cancer or solve international conflicts or rescue someone from a burning building to count up ways you helped others or the world. A contributions journal entry could be as simple as, "1) Helped my neighbor plant her garden. 2) Dropped a bag of food at the food bank. 3) Helped my niece with her math homework." Any way that you made someone else's day or life a little easier or better is a contribution, so don't be overly judgey of your own list.

Besides, the more you reflect on giving, according to Grant, the more giving you'll have to reflect on, so just make a start and see what happens.

The morning after Hurricane Matthew roared through St. Simons Island, Georgia, golfer Davis Love III drove over to his neighbor's house with a chainsaw.

"We’re on the marsh, and he rode [the storm] out and kept an eye on both houses, and I had to take the chainsaw just to get him out of his drive," Love said. "It’s just been nonstop."

Love, a PGA Championship winner and captain of the United States Ryder Cup Team, was one of hundreds of local volunteers and professional emergency service personnel assisting in the clean-up effort on St. Simons. The island was spared the worst of the storm — no injuries or deaths were reported — but the high winds played havoc with the sleepy beach community's trees, uprooting giant oaks and launching limbs onto the canopied streets and into power lines.


Power lines tangled in an uprooted tree on Bartow Street on St. Simons Island. Photo by Jerry Nardell.

"I’ve been here 28 years, and this is the worst [storm] I’ve seen here on St. Simons," Glynn County commissioner Dale Provenzano said. The downed lines resembled a tangle of necklaces in a jewelry box, knocking out the power for the few dozen residents who stayed and forcing emergency crews to work around the clock to repair them.

But in the midst of it all, there was barbecue.

Six years ago, Harrison Sapp stormed into Southern Soul BBQ cursing at his customers, yelling at them to run. No one believed the restaurant was on fire.

"We watched it. We all watched it," Sapp said. "Us, the fire department, and everybody. We just watched it burn to the ground. ‘Cause there was nothing that could be done. We all thought we were done."

The timing could not have been worse — not that there's ever a good time for your restaurant to burn down. Sapp had just filmed an audition for "BBQ Pitmasters." "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" had stopped by a few weeks before. The partners were convinced the restaurant was on the edge of breaking through. The fire, they thought, would put an end to all of that.

Then they checked Facebook.

Griffin Bufkin (left) and Harrison Sapp of Southern Soul BBQ. Photo by Andrew Thoma's Lee/Southern Soul BBQ.

Even before the flames extinguished themselves, the restaurant's wall was full of expressions of disbelief, declarations of sympathy, prayers, proclamations of love, and offers to raise money.

"Somehow, we had just become part of the community, you know, and everybody over here was family," Sapp said.

Southern Soul kept operating — first out of a tent, then a trailer. Local restaurants held fundraisers. A man on a bicycle rode up and wrote them a check for $35,000. "Pay me back when the insurance pays," he told them. Six months later, they were up and running again in a new building.  

"I think ever since then, they’ve felt like they need to give back as much as they can," Love, a part-owner of the restaurant, said.

At 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2016, a few hours after Matthew had moved off the coast, Jerry Nardell, a childhood friend of Sapp and Bufkin's who works as a bartender at a nearby restaurant, rode his bicycle down to Southern Soul to charge his phone.

Unbeknownst to him, a Georgia state patrol officer had escorted Sapp back onto the island early that morning with Bufkin half an hour behind him. Their staff had prepped the smoker the night before.

"We just promised that we would basically be back, we would be there to serve first responders," Sapp said. "No matter what happened, we would come back."

Inside the restaurant, mountains of brisket, ribs, and pulled pork sat cooked and ready to heat. The crew set out aluminum trays and lit Sterno candles underneath. Nardell jumped on the buffet line.

He stayed there until 11pm.

"We owe St. Simons everything. I owe them everything. They take care of us like we’re their kids, and we try to take care of everybody around here." — Harrison Sapp

Another friend, Lance Williams, who left Southern Soul to start Mallery Street Cafe in downtown St. Simons, pulled up to offer his help. Within minutes of arriving, he was in the kitchen, cutting and pulling meat.  

"I just showed up and grabbed an apron, you know? I know what to do," Williams said.

Georgia Power workers fill up a plate at Southern Soul. Photo via Southern Soul BBQ/Facebook, used with permission.

Southern Soul put out the call to emergency workers and first responders on the island — first through word of mouth, then on social media — that lunch was available free of charge. They came in groups: local police, firefighters, state police, power company workers, Homeland Security officers. It was organized chaos, but the line kept moving.

"They just kept food rolling out until we pretty much ran out," Nardell said.

Around 7 p.m., the power came back on.

The next day, the crew at Southern Soul expanded the food service to include locals who stayed on the island.

Sapp, who had previously ridden out storms in South Carolina, Hawaii, and Oklahoma, knew how restorative a hot meal could be to those left behind.

"What I learned at all of those places is, people have got to eat," Sapp said. "They’re not going to have anything to eat, there’s not going to be any power, there’s not going to be anything."

Williams recalled running food to an elderly man who no one could reach.

"He’s a 94-year-old man that has dementia and they couldn’t get a hold of him," Williams said.

Emergency workers eat at Southern Soul. Photo via Southern Soul BBQ/Facebook, used with permission.

While emergency crews were untangling power lines and clearing tree limbs off the roads, local volunteers met at Southern Soul in the late morning to coordinate assistance efforts.

"One of the neighbors had gotten in touch with me to ask if I could check on their chickens, so I got into their backyard, climbed their fence, and fed their chickens," said Kirsten Hawkins, Southern Soul's general manager, who made tea and helped serve.

Meanwhile, Love and others drove around checking on the homes of residents who had evacuated and cutting away trees that were blocking driveways.

"We were actually joking that we’d declared martial law, because we could go around the roundabout the wrong way and drive as fast as we wanted," Love said.

Provenzano credits Southern Soul, along with a number of other local restaurants that stayed open, for helping the recovery effort run smoothly and allowing emergency workers to stay on the island through mealtimes, instead of having to travel to a staging area on the mainland.  

A previous storm in 1999, he explained, forced the island to evacuate without a plan, and clean-up efforts chaotic and disorganized. After Matthew, most of the island's roads were clear and lights were back on within 96 hours.

"If you had told me that we wouldn’t even have power crews on the island until mid-day Saturday, and that all the customers would have their power restored by Tuesday night, I’d have said there’s no way," Provenzano said. He praised the power company employees for working non-stop, the police for keeping the proceedings orderly, and the local volunteers for filling in the gaps.

Sapp said he and Bufkin were duty-bound to play a small part.

"We owe St. Simons everything. I owe them everything. They take care of us like we’re their kids, and we try to take care of everybody around here," he said.

Southern Soul resumed regular service on Monday night. On Tuesday, Love and his crew stopped by for dinner.

The golfer was exhausted from clearing when the chef approached his table and asked what he was doing next.

"I said, 'We’re not doing anything, we’re done for the day, I’m gonna go to sleep,' and he said, 'Alright, come on, we’re making rub,'" Love said.

The smoker. Photo via Southern Soul BBQ/Facebook, used with permission.

The chef led him around back to a cement mixer. After a long few days, blending spices was therapy.

"That’s us. We cook barbecue, you know?" Sapp said.

Poland's Piotr Malachowski is one of the world's top discus throwers.

He has a solid Olympic record. He won a silver medal in Beijing during the 2008 games, and is also the proud owner of the fifth-longest discus throw ever: 71.84 meters (FYI, that's really far).

But at the Rio Olympics, the competition was intense. If Malachowski wanted to take home a medal, it would be one of the biggest challenges of his life.


In the end, he was narrowly edged out by a German competitor for the gold in Rio. But still, he was plenty proud to take home another silver medal for his country.

Malachowski warms up. Photo by Ranck Fife/AFP/Getty Images.

Now a two-time Olympic medalist, Malachowski was flooded with congratulations and well wishes after his final throw.

But one letter of congratulations stood out to him because it was from a mother desperate for his help.

Her name was Goshia, Malachowski wrote, and her 3-year-old son, Olek, was suffering from a rare form of cancer known as retinoblastoma, or cancer of the eye.

Though the disease is treatable, Goshia wrote to Malachowski that the only way to save her son's eyesight was to take him to New York City for treatment by a top ophthalmologist. Needless to say, that would be far too expensive for her family to afford on its own.

When a child is gravely ill, there's almost nothing their parent wouldn't do .... including writing to Olympic athletes for help.

Malachowski proudly waves the Polish flag. Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

When Malachowski heard Olek's story, he knew the timing was "fate." He decided he had to help.

An organization called Siepomaga had already raised a significant amount of money for Olek's treatment, but there was a long way to go. The total fundraising goal was around $126,000.

So the Olympian ponied up the most valuable thing he owned — his most recent silver medal.

In a Facebook post, he told his followers he was putting his prized medal up for auction to cover the rest of the costs:

Zdobycie medalu olimpijskiego to dla sportowca spełnienie życiowych marzeń. Oczywiście najcenniejszy jest ten złoty....

Posted by Piotr Małachowski on Friday, August 19, 2016

"In Rio I fought for gold," he wrote. "Today I call on all people — let us fight together for something that is even more valuable. For the health of this fantastic boy."

The auction lasted only a few days before a wealthy brother and sister made Malachowski a private offer he couldn't refuse.

ESPN reported that the top bid for Piotr's medal was roughly $19,000 before the final offer came in. Though he didn't share the exact amount, Malachowski made it clear in another Facebook post that the final sale price was enough to cover the rest of Olek's treatment.

"Thank you everyone who took part in the auction," he wrote. "We were able to show that together we can make miracles. My silver medal today is worth much more than a week ago."

Malachowski's massively selfless act is only the beginning of this story. 3-year-old Olek still has a long fight ahead of him.

Hopefully, with the world's top doctors working tirelessly to treat his disease, he can come out on top. We're rooting for you, buddy.

And as for Malachowski himself, he may be down one medal. But after this priceless gift, he's certainly earned the right to be called the people's champion forever.

The water never reached Kimberly Viator's doorstep because her house sits up on a hill.

But all around her, her Youngsville, Louisiana, neighbors' homes were taking on massive amounts of water.

And all over the state, things are just as bad: Over 40,000 homes are said to have been destroyed or damaged in this year's Louisiana flooding.


An intersection is completely engulfed by floodwater. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

"We were so blessed," Kimberly said.

When Kimberly heard of people throwing away their treasured family photos because of water damage, though, she felt her heart break.

Kimberly says a family member was helping out at a neighbor's house, and they started throwing albums and albums of sopping wet photos into the garbage, assuming they were ruined.

"I said, 'No, don't do that, oh my gosh. We can try to salvage them.'"

Kimberly knew she could put her years of photography experience to use. So she posted on her professional Facebook page with a simple message, offering to do anything she could to help save photos for those in need:

For anyone in the flood area here in south Louisiana please do not throw out your wet or damaged photos. I am not just...

Posted by Kimberly Ann Photography on Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Almost immediately, thousands of cries for help filled Kimberly's inbox.

Her first challenge? Carefully thawing and drying a frozen wedding album for a nearby couple.

Removing wet photos from an album like this is tricky work, and it needs to be done fast. Photo by Kimberly Ann Photography, used with permission.

Freezing photos can help keep the images intact while you move them to a place where they can dry out properly, she says. This first batch dried perfectly with no damage, but Kimberly also fixes smearing, smudging, tears, and other kinds of damage by creating high-resolution scans of the photos, manipulating them in Photoshop, and reprinting them on photo paper.

Then there was a woman whose 10-year-old son had passed away just days before the flooding.

"Anything she had of his was still very fresh and so precious," Kimberly said. "And it was all gone."

Except for a handful of photos.

"It's something that, in the scheme ofthings, seems very meaningless compared to someone losing theirhome. But I've had people tell me, 'My home can be rebuilt, but Ican't have another photo taken with my grandfather who passed away. I can't bring back my child who passed away and this was theirlast picture,'" Kimberly said.

"It's almostlike it's the last thing they have."

The sheer number of desperate requests has been far too much for Kimberly to handle alone.

So it's a good thing people all over the world have offered to help.

Every surface in Kimberly's house is covered in photographs. Photo by Kimberly Ann Photography, used with permission.

Placing individual photos around her house, drying them, scanning them into the computer, then editing and reprinting them is massively time-consuming.

But her inspiring work has traveled far and wide. And others want to help.

"I've had an astronomical amount of people from as far as Australia offer to do Photoshop work for me. These are legitimate professionals. ... In every state in the U.S. someone has offered to help."

But that's just the digital work. When it comes to collecting and drying the photos, Kimberly is on her own, for now. She says she's running out of space in her house and is hoping to find free access to a warehouse nearby to continue her work.

The houses and automobiles of Louisiana will eventually be repaired or rebuilt.

But memories aren't so easy to replace. Playing on the floor of their parents home as a kid or being a wide-eyed teen pulling off in their first car — that's what Kimberly is fighting to save.

"There's no one else here to help," she said. "It's neighbor helping neighbor."

With neighbors like her working tirelessly to make a difference, it's hard not to feel hopeful that, one day, things will be OK in Louisiana again.