To celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day on February 17th, Jill Lublin, author of the best-selling book The Profit of Kindness, is issuing a series of Kindness Challenges. These Kindness Challenges demonstrate the power of what’s possible with kindness in your daily personal and professional life.
Challenge #1: Connect with someone new on a deeper level.
When you’re at a networking event, talking to a new contact or getting on that first Zoom call with someone, it’s easy to come focused on your own agenda. For this challenge, you’ll need to flip the script. Spend this first time connecting as deeply as possible with this new relationship. What are their biggest needs right now? What connections or resources would make a big difference in their life or business?
Challenge #2: Connect two (or more) people within your network without being asked.
A conversation makes it easy for you to directly recognize someone’s wants or needs since they’re right in front of you. But what about people who you already know? Perhaps there are some people that you have great or long-standing relationships with that need to know each other. Maybe they’d be great colleagues, partners or even just friends.
Challenge #3: Make a call (phone or video) to express your gratitude for someone.
Although it’s easy to put together a warm and heartfelt email, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of hearing someone express their gratitude with you via their voice and their personal warmth. Taking a few moments to recognize someone and express your heartfelt sentiments to them can and will change a relationship for the better.
Challenge #4: Take some time for yourself to meditate or reflect.
Even if you have a busy day ahead, give yourself the gift of kindness by taking a few moments to focus on yourself. Self-reflection helps you develop patience, avoid stress and burnout, and results in increased optimism. When you slow down and focus solely on what’s going on in your inner world, it becomes far easier to manage yourself toward kindness and positivity.
Challenge #5: Plan something for yourself or your business for the long term.
Each day has its own unique set of circumstances that easily distract you from devoting time to longer-term activities. Don’t forget, as humans we’re wired to focus on immediate reward rather than on gradual change or results. This act of kindness will allow you to spend time focused on something that may not pay off today or tomorrow, but will create something to look forward to in the future.
Challenge #6: Do something generous without being asked or prompted.
This is the most common random act of kindness. Pick up a check for someone. Surprise someone with coffee or a gift. Do something unexpected that you know will bring joy to anyone you can regardless of how well you know them or not. Even if this means simply spending time talking to someone and giving the gift of your time, that’s more than enough!
Challenge 7: Write some simple, positive affirmation statements that you will review each day.
Once you’ve cut out the negative, you need something to replace the space that’s left behind. This means that you need to have strong statements that ground you into your positivity. What are your strengths? What makes you the happiest? How do you know that you’re staying on the right track to be kind to yourself and others? The more you integrate these statements into your being, the less effort it takes to stay kind and positive.
THE POWER OF KINDNESS
Each one of these challenges have the opportunity to show you the power of kindness and what a difference it will make in your life.
Jill Lublin is an international speaker and author of four books including Get Noticed…Get Referrals (McGraw Hill. She is co-author of Guerrilla Publicity and Networking Magic. Her latest book, Profit of Kindness went #1 in four categories. She also leads an intentional kindness community. Visit publicitycrashcourse.com/
