Wednesday's Action Step

Kindness is infectious, and as we learned yesterday, kindness is a product of gratitude. What are you grateful for? When you define those things, get out there and allow the things that have made you grateful to fuel kindness by giving those things to others. Take the kids along with you or show them how and why you are doing what you are doing as a way of teaching them what kindness looks like. Wherever you are, when you submit yourselves to the needs of those around you, whether you know those needs or not, you will find that you yourself benefit greatly by giving of yourself in this way. Here are a few practical things you can do if you need some inspiration. But when kindness comes out of what we are grateful for, it magnifies the meaning so much more. Also, don’t look too hard for where you can practice kindness. As much as you practice this randomly, make sure you influence your world by practicing kindness with the people you are in relationship with right now, no matter where they may be.

•Pay for someone’s gifts.
•Pay for someone’s groceries behind you in line.
•Take flowers to the nurse’s station at your local hospital – the nurses will know who needs them most.
•Pay for the lunch of people behind you at a fast food restaurant or behind you in the drive thru.
•Reconnect with someone you haven’t talked to lately.
•Have your kids call their grandparents before their grandparents call them.
•Stick a handwritten note of encouragement in the mail.
•Listen to someone who is hurting.
•Take lunch, cookies, or cupcakes to your local fire department and/or police department.
•Donate stuffed animals to police and fire departments to use during emergencies to help calm frightened children.
•Buy extra groceries and give them to someone you know.
•Pick up the tab when dining out…especially if you know someone also dining at the same place.
•Leave a generous tip.
•If you have hurt someone, make it right.
•Tell people WHY you love them.
•Give an honest, unprovoked compliment.
•Celebrate the win in someone else’s life.
•Get the kids and write encouraging messages on the sidewalks.
•Protect your family time! It is vitally important.
•Enjoy yourself, smile, laugh, be goofy…all where people can see you. Joy is contagious.
•Buy dessert for someone eating out alone and use it to start a conversation.
•Put sticky notes with positive messages in public places.
•Hand out gloves and mittens to the homeless, or leave them on park benches.
•Pay for the coffee, the toll, or the bus fare for the person behind you.
•Text or call the people you know are hurting at this time.
•Thank someone who you appreciate.
•Find something you consider valuable and give it away.
•Give an understanding smile to the parents with the grumpy or noisy kids.
•Sing an employee’s praises to a manager or on a comment card — a little recognition goes a long way.
•Tell people why you appreciate them.
•Hold the door open for someone.
•Pick up trash you see laying around.
•Help someone load their groceries.
•Return someone’s shopping cart to the store for them.
•Let folks go ahead of you in the checkout line.
•Place large signs with kind messages in your windows so people can be inspired as they drive or walk by.
•Leave a favorite book in a public place with a note that’s it’s free for the taking.
•Volunteer an afternoon somewhere.
•Pick up the phone and call someone. Tell them how you feel about them.
•Put a comment on someone’s webpage that you really like……let them know you enjoy it.
•Leave random encouraging comments on Social Media
•Drop off a toy or game at a hospital or a homeless shelter.
•Donate coloring books and boxes of new crayons to the pediatric wing of a hospital.
•Leave a big bottle of homemade [laundry detergent](https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/cheap-simple-homemade-laundry-detergent/) at a laundromat.
•Give a hot drink to the person ringing the Salvation Army bell.
•Leave candy canes on the windshields of random cars.
•Invite someone you suspect will be alone to spend your holiday celebrations with you.
•See a need? Meet the need.
•Smile.