Random Acts of Kindness & Compassion

This was another challenging week for me to get in those random acts of kindness. The crazy thing is that I know completing the RAOK (Random Acts of Kindness) makes me feel great and actually lifts me up, but when I'm busy with life it os really hard to fit them in. I guess this isn't the only area of life in which we know something is good for us, yet we still don't do it. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I think that being busy can really be the rival of some of the best things in life! This week I took a few moments to send a couple of texts to people I haven't connected with in a while just to let them know I was thinking of them, I wrote some little encouraging notes for my family members and left them in random spots for them to find, and I paid for the person's order behind me in the Tim Horton's 'drive thru.' I also continues with some extra walks and play time for the neighbours dog while they are away. I've been making some good progre

Can I be honest for a minute? This week was busy for many reasons. As a result of my busy days and overall full schedule I found it difficult to follow through with performing random acts of kindness this week. At times in the week it just felt like a weight I was carrying along with me and if I'm being honest, if it weren't for this Genius Hour project I probably wouldn't have completed all the acts that I did. I've come to learn that being busy can actually be the rival of intentional kindness acts. This being said, I have to admit that once I completed the acts that I did this week I felt a huge lift. It almost seemed to alleviate some of the anxiety and frustration I was experiencing.  This is not only for just getting them done, but for knowing I was supporting someone else, or something else outside of what is going on in my own little corner of the universe. One of my goals has always been that I want people to know they are seen. I want people (and dogs in this

What a week! I kept moving ahead with my 'Random Acts of Kindness & Compassion' activities this week. Some acts were simple like sending a text to a friend or someone I hadn't seen in a long time and just letting them know that I've been thinking about them and miss them. Sending 2 of these messages this week literally gave me a sense of companionship. I felt connected. It took seconds. I also intentionally over-tipped our pizza delivery person on Saturday providing approximately 3 times what I would normally tip. He was happy and that made me happy.  Sometimes the simplest things can feel so good. For example, when I got groceries at 'No Frills' this week I left my quarter in the grocery cart for the next person to use. $0.25 that cost me and I felt like I was paying it forward to someone that might not have a quarter when they got to the store. Or maybe someone else would just take it.  Other acts were a little more involved... My son and I went to the gar

Welcome to my first official blog post on my random acts of kindness and compassion genius hour project! I'm excited you're here and interested in learning more about the impact that performing random acts of kindness has on our mental health. This is my driving question behind this project. I’ve spent a lot of time online this week researching random acts of kindness/compassion. I’ve even started to accomplish a few random acts of my own. Initially my hope was that I would complete one act of kindness every day. Well that didn’t last! 🤦🏼‍♀️ I do have a couple of highlights I’d like to share from this last week though. Stand by… I’ll share those in a minute. My hope with attempting this experiment is to reflect personally on the way that performing random acts of kindness makes me feel. I’m hoping to feel a shift of more positivity and joy in my day to day activities. Is kindness contagious? I think it can be. I also think being kind is incredibly rewarding, especially when d

Hello! I'm Andrea and this blog has been created to document and give account of a personal challenge that I've been eager to try for more than a year. My hope is that participating in this challenge will change my state of mind, and help me to set more of an outward focus on being the shift in people's day from a place of 'meh' to a place of feeling seen and appreciated. I truly believe that a single moment in time can change the trajectory of someone's life. Over the coming weeks I want to monitor a bunch of single random acts of kindness/compassion and evaluate how these acts change my daily perspective and mindset, as well as evaluate feedback from those involved in the random act of kindness/compassion.