7 Practices to Become a Kind and Generous Person
We are living in a world of high competition. Being in a challenging environment has benefits to offer in terms of personal and professional growth, but it certainly comes at a cost. With our increasingly busy schedules in the modern world of today, we have unfortunately lost our values. The importance of being kind and generous has been lost on a lot of us. The concept of altruism that once fueled our societies has reduced to nothing but a word that we don’t use anymore. Somewhere along the way, we have all become so busy with our own lives that no one bothers to think of the greater good, something that goes beyond our personal self.
The true mark of generosity is to be kind and selfless towards others. While the whole essence of being generous revolves around doing something for others, it is quite a paradox that the benefits of being kind and generous include one’s own well-being as well. Generosity works like medicine in improving your mental health. Being selfless towards the people around you puts into action what can only be termed as a “virtuous cycle”. When you are kind and generous towards other people, the likelihood of them being giving towards you is increased, which in turn increase the probability of you reciprocating their affection and this goes on. Such a series of events stimulate the specific parts of your brain which are associated with the feelings of social connection, pleasure, and trust. As a consequence, your overall frequency vibe becomes more warm and positive.
The Ripple Effect Of Generosity
You’d be amazed to know that a simple act of kindness is exponential in terms of its impact. Something as little as saying “Thank you” with a warm smile on your face has a tendency to inspire not only the recipient but also those who witnessed, to be more generous in their daily proceedings. This is known as the ripple effect of generosity which promotes a sense of happiness and peace among people and overcomes the feelings of loneliness.
Now that you know what it actually means to be kind and generous, wouldn’t it be amazing if you could practice it in your life every day? However, in all honesty, being generous and spreading kindness isn’t always as convenient as it sounds. At least in the beginning, it will take a solid voluntary effort to treat people, animals, things, and your surroundings with kindness. But considering the greater good that it accomplishes, the effort is absolutely worth it.
Much like any other habit, it will take some time and practice for you to get to the point where kindness comes naturally to you. But you won’t get there if you don’t start. Therefore, we have compiled a list of 7 practices that you can start with for your journey towards becoming a more generous person.
- What Is It That You Are Grateful For?
The first and the foremost thing that you need before you try to spread kindness and generosity among the people around you is to make sure that you feel grateful from within. Nothing works better for invoking a sense of gratefulness in you than compiling a list of what you are absolutely thankful for in your life. It could be a person, it could be your pet, it could be a thing that you have an emotional attachment with, a trip that you took last year, the meal on your dining table, it could be anything at all. Try to free yourself from the noise and start working on your list in a calm and peaceful environment. Try to focus on your energy and your mental state through the process of crafting the list. Try to get a sense of positive change in your vibe as you jot it down.
A similar activity that works to invoke gratefulness in you and prepare you better for being a kind and generous human being is meditation or mindfulness exercises especially the ones which involve a personal mantra. Your personal mantra could be anything from a whole list of positive statements such as “I am thankful for …”. Once you have your personal mantra in your mind, sit comfortably in a silent corner and start with deep, slow breathing. Now slowly start to repeat your personal mantra in your head. Repeat this exercise for a few minutes and let it work its charm into making you calm and peaceful.
- Spread Positivity
The easiest language of kindness and generosity that is understandable for the people is that of positivity. The fact is, not everyone can be an overachiever and not everything is good at everything that they do. Nonetheless, while they may be failing at some aspect of their lives, each and every single of your acquaintances are doing well at something. Being kind and generous requires you to remove your [restrict] focus from their shortcomings and appreciate them with an open heart for what they are good at. Starting from today, let’s stop being a miser when it comes to praising your friends, family, and colleagues, cause the truth is, we all need it to keep us going. You never know the impact it’ll have on their lives. Not only would you be making their day, but you would also be inspiring them to do even better in their lives. Remember, someone who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected of him.
- Being Patient And Supportive Is Imperative
If you want to go the extra mile in being more kind and generous towards people, being patient and supportive with them is your way to go. Failure is a reality for all of us. Not everyone is lucky enough to be successful in the first attempt. Being patient with someone’s failure, having the confidence to stand with them in hard times, and supporting them to do better the next time is an impeccable way of showing them that we care. You can be kind to people in so many different ways, but believing in them and keeping your confidence in them surely takes the lead.
- Keep Their Privacy
As evident, generosity and kindness is all about being selfless and giving. And the finest of all the gifts that you can give to someone in this time and age is the gift of privacy. Thanks to social media, we are unfortunately drowning in a habit of oversharing. It has turned our lives into an open book. We have been so used to knowing about people that now it is not novel for someone to entitle himself to know more about a certain person. Being kind does also mean respecting the boundaries. Understanding that there is no need to know and accepting that at times, it is not even our right to demand more knowledge about someone is imperative to adopt generosity. Generous people avoid over-asking and prying and yet make themselves available when someone is in need of a reliable person to share with. Even after knowing, they are the ones who know how to respect their privacy. All in all, these are the people who understand that in order to be kind and caring, there is no requirement of knowing first.
- Say What Needs To Be Said
None of us is perfect, not even close. All of us are thriving to make ourselves better every day, both personally and professionally. And yet we all have certain negative patterns, blind spots, and habits which pull us down. It is important to realize that while patient and support are an indispensable component of kindness, it must not translate into being ignorant. The whole idea of generosity is to help people and for this very purpose, sometimes you have to take the bold step and tell them what they least want to hear, but what is needed to be told. And brace yourself before you do it because it is going to take a lot out of you to sit someone down that you love and tell them that you expect more from them or that they are not reaching out to their full potential. It is highly likely that you’ve been there yourself. There must have been a time when someone sat you down and told you what you least wanted to hear. But since it was crucial to be known, knowing it worked for you for the better. So now it’s time for you to do lend someone else the same favor and hopefully unlock their true potential. Say what needs to be said. Sometimes, it’s a metaphor for a helping hand.
- Be Open To Accepting Defeat
There is no courage in always being the winner. The true mark of bravery is to humbly accept the defeat. You can never disseminate kindness as long as you think of yourself as a god who can never be wrong. Regardless of how knowledgeable you are, or the depth of the research that you have made, no matter how strongly you feel about your beliefs, wisdom lies in being open to others’ opinions and ideas. Generous people listen to what others have to say with an open mind and respect their ideas even in an event of a disagreement. They are calm, peaceful, and gentle in their conflicts, and most importantly, they have a rational approach in resolving them. If you are in search of true kindness and generosity, be open to accepting your defeat and realizing when you are wrong. Ignorance of logic, self-righteousness, and proving yourself right by hook or by crook, is a battle that you must win in order to be more kind and generous in your routine life.
- Give, Quite Literally
So far, we have focused primarily on the emotional component of giving and being selfless. Last but not the least on our list of routine practices to promote kindness and generosity, however, taps more into the financial aspect of it. Find a cause that you support and then follow the simple trick of putting a dollar every day in the donation box. It could be anything in your locality. An animal shelter, an orphanage, a retirement home, anything at all. The trust is, no matter who we are and what we do, there are always people who are looking up to us for help. And if you are in a position to help them out in any way, lending them a helping hand will let you experience the best of what kindness and generosity have to offer. Such a small act of kindness will lighten up an unparalleled sense of warmth and happiness.
Conclusion
Kindness is a broad concept that doesn’t confine itself to the people. It includes being generous with the animals, with the environment around you, and even with the things. If you are generous with people, but it doesn’t break you even a little bit while being harsh with the animals, then you have failed to understand the essence of kindness. Similarly, if you are polite and gentle with all living things, and yet you fail to preserve the environment around you and polluting it is not a big deal for you, then you have not been successful in making yourself a kinder and more generous person.
If you look around yourself, the opportunities to spread kindness are ample. We have only mentioned the top 7, easy to follow practices which can act as your baby steps towards becoming a more generous person. As mentioned before, it will take an effort to be kind towards people. Making it a habit for yourself will take a bit of your time. But all you need is to get started with these baby steps. You have to get a sense of what it feels like, hands-on experience of how it changes your life to realize how worthwhile all of the efforts really are. Once you do, it will all start to come naturally to you.
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