Well, another holiday season is just about behind us. The joy, the togetherness, the stress, the Christmas songs playing in the supermarket since mid-October. The holidays are a time to give thanks, to reflect, to celebrate, to look forward to the coming year. In the coming days, millions of people, maybe even billions, including some of you reading this right now, will make their New Year’s resolutions. Promises to engage in some new behavior, get into better shape, stop doing this, start doing that. And we all know that most of those resolutions will be dead in the water somewhere around the second week of February.
There are usually two main reasons that resolutions fall apart: One, the resolution is too lofty and unrealistic. I’m going to eat nothing but carrots and chia seeds until I lose twenty pounds. Two, people set a goal but don’t create a realistic plan for achieving it. Look, you want to run a marathon? That’s awesome, but just naming it isn’t enough. You need a nutrition plan, a movement regimen, benchmarks to meet along the way. I’m not trying to discourage you from setting big goals, I mean, we kind of specialize in big goals here at IMS. We train the tools, techniques, and strategies for realizing whatever vision of life you want to create. So if you’ve got some big ideas for next year, jump into the Power Series and let us help you get there. But in the meantime, how about developing a practice that requires no planning, takes very little effort, and offers huge rewards?
Here it is: Practice performing small acts of kindness. That’s it. Two cars are headed for the same parking spot. You could stomp on the gas, aggressively commandeer the spot, and revel in your victory. Or…you could, with a smile, wave the other person into the spot and find another one. Maybe you have to walk an extra twenty or thirty feet to the Home Depot, but you also may have provided the person in the other car a bright moment during an otherwise shitty day. There’s no way of knowing that, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is you’ve shown kindness to a complete stranger, and regardless of the effect it has on the other person, it’s going to make you feel good about yourself.
I get it, life is busy, we’re all going a thousand miles an hour, places to go, people to see, things to do. That’s why this is the perfect time of year to tap on the brakes and shine a light on being kind to each other. I mean, that’s what the holidays are all about, right? But with just a little bit of intention, we can carry it beyond the holidays and actually create it as a way of being. Sometimes, to put things into perspective, I like to look at the bigger picture. Here we are, roughly 8 billion of us now, the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, living on the surface of a rock that’s flying through space at 67,000 miles an hour around a giant ball of fire. And we’re only here for a minute. The writer Anne Lamott is quoted as saying, “A hundred years from now? All new people.”
So now you’re saying to yourself, Jesus, Joey, that’s pretty f%#cking bleak, like nothing we do here really matters. No, I’m saying just the opposite. I’m saying what we do, how we treat each other, is even more important during this brief moment that we were lucky enough to pop into existence. Every one of us, all 8 billion, different from those who came before, and different from those who will come after, are truly connected by this momentary experience we call life. Is it too much to ask that we spend just a little bit of time being kind to each other?
You don’t have to set out to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Simply find a moment each day to do something nice for another person. Not just the usual courtesies like holding a door open, or saying please and thank you, treating people respectfully, although those are all great things to be up to. I’m talking about keeping our eyes and ears open and making a little bit of effort to bring even a ray of light into someone’s day. Because even small acts of kindness can make a huge difference, and when you make it a way of being, it can amount to a legacy.
How about in the workplace? Maybe for your next team meeting, you bring one of those big boxes of coffee from Starbucks. If you have an assistant, maybe leave a little note letting them know how much you value them. When someone on your team is really going the extra mile, pull them aside and let them know you see it. And while you’re at it, pass it up the chain of command, let the bosses know that Derrick is really killing it. If you see someone struggling, ask what’s going on and then, most importantly, actually listen to what they have to say. These are people you work with everyday. In fact, you probably spend more time with them than you do with anybody else. Why not bring a little sunshine into their day?
A great place to practice small acts of kindness is inside our relationships. Make your wife her favorite meal just because. Husband getting up early to go on a business trip? Get up with him and see him off. Tell your kids you’re proud of them. Tell your wife she looks cute in those jeans. Have a friend who’s moving? Show up with a bag of sandwiches and help pack boxes. Call your grandma. Whatever it is, the thing itself doesn’t matter. Train a practice of seeing opportunities to give someone a little lift.
Imagine a world where everyone engaged in small acts of kindness everyday. Where you let that guy go ahead and pull into the parking spot. Where you help that little old lady in the supermarket, reaching for the melba toast on the top shelf. Where you leave that server an extra big tip, just because you can. You’ll find that practicing small acts of kindness feels good! And why do you suppose that is? Come on, you know I’m not going to go without bringing it up. It feels good because being kind to others has a particular effect on…the nervous system!
Of course it does, and we can again look back at our ancestors to understand why. Being kind, doing for others is another one of those survival strategies that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Early humans were dependent on the protection and the support of the tribe. There could be no worse punishment than being banned and cast out. So finding ways to show kindness to your fellow tribe members was a great survival technique. Sharing a moment of kindness with another person, whether a close family member or a complete stranger, is a bonding moment. Even if it’s just handing a couple bucks to the person in front of you because they came up a bit short, the nervous system triggers the brain to give us a little bit of those feel good chemicals. It’s saying, yes, this is a good thing to do.
So what better practice to develop in the new year than finding ways to perform small acts of kindness. It’s not just doing good, it also feels good. Working with the nervous system is what we do here at IMS. We provide the tools, techniques, and strategies for creating the life of your design, and that begins with understanding the nervous system and how it works. Join us for a Power Series program and start developing the practices that will take you to the life you want to be living. Click HERE to learn more about our Power Series and sign up today!