On Showing Gratitude via Twitter

If you're a Twitter user, you're probably aware of a tradition/practice that takes place on Fridays which are called "Follow Fridays." By marking your tweet with a hashtag of "#FF" or "#FollowFriday", you then let the world know of a person that you're referring to as a good person to follow on Twitter for some reason.

Now to be fair, I think a lot of people are using Twitter's Follow Friday tradition poorly. They simply send out four or five tweets full of names of people who've started following them recently, with no reason why or what they offer. And that's done two things to me: one, it makes me ignore those tweets because they're almost incomprehensible; and two, it annoys me to the point where I've stopped following a few people because they do it constantly.

I like to do my Follow Friday tweets with something a little different in mind: I do it to show gratitude. Showing gratitude is one of the very basics of personal development, as it helps to create a mindset of accepting the value that other people are putting into your life. And being able to accept value is key to increasing the value and energy flowing into your life so you can then show it to other people as well.

So here's the tweet I gave out for Follow Friday today:

#FF @PrimalToad is my pick for today: he's a great, enthusiastic blogger and adherent to the #Primal Blueprint. Follow him AND his blog!

Real simple - I let people know of the value he's given to me and thanked him for it by sharing that with everyone else.

I'll probably do a couple more today as well, always letting everyone know of the value that a Tweep can give to the potential followers! It's a nice custom if used properly and judiciously, and it'll create gratitude and positive energy that will keep on spreading.

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Jamie Fellrath | Practical Mindfulness

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