Fish! series, part 2: Make someone’s day

Image: adap­ta­tion of some­times a hug is all what we need cour­tesy of kalan­drakas

“Have you noticed (…) when you’re walk­ing down the street (…) peo­ple don’t smile any more? They have lost the abil­ity to smile!” — Jack Lalanne

If you’re new to this series, you may want to read our first arti­cle where we explain the four basic prin­ci­ples that are the basis of the Fish! phi­los­o­phy, and how it can help you have a hap­pier life. Today, we will dis­cuss the sec­ond prin­ci­ple (Make someone’s day) and give you some sim­ple ideas of how to do this on a daily basis, both at work and at home.

Prin­ci­ple # 2 — Make someone’s day

The sec­ond prin­ci­ple of the Fish! phi­los­o­phy is really no secret: Actively and reg­u­larly exer­cis­ing your Kind­ness mus­cles will lead to hap­pier, health­ier, bet­ter lives. Yes, there is a strong case for kind­ness and altru­ism. The best news is that this type of kind­ness does not require fat check­books or a life of depri­va­tion and self­less sac­ri­fices. No, we are talk­ing about sim­ple, ide­ally daily small and per­haps even ran­dom acts of kind­ness that make those around you feel appreciated.

This idea was not born out of naivety from do-goodies; Found first in the reli­gious teach­ings of Bud­dha, Jesus, Mohamed and other lead­ers, today’s body of sci­ence has now proven the case for kind­ness. Recent aca­d­e­mic stud­ies in Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­ogy by lumi­nar­ies such as Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity con­firm that “com­plet­ing five acts of kind­ness every day has a sig­nif­i­cant and pos­i­tive impact in our lev­els of pos­i­tive emo­tion”, and leads to hap­pier lives. Or as doc­tor Stephen Post and Jill Neimark proved in their recent book Why Good Things Hap­pen to Good Peo­ple, “when we give of our­selves, espe­cially if we start young, every­thing from life-satisfaction to self-realization and phys­i­cal health is sig­nif­i­cantly affected. Mor­tal­ity is delayed. Depres­sion is reduced. Well-being and good for­tune are increased.”

Mak­ing someone’s day on a daily basis

Mak­ing someone’s day does not usu­ally take a lot of effort, energy or money. Sure, spend­ing large amounts of any of those can make a big dif­fer­ence to the impact you have through good deeds; unfor­tu­nately, most of us get eas­ily con­fused by this fact, and assume that unless we set out to really make a big dif­fer­ence, it is all a waste of effort. I have good news for you: it isn’t.

At work, the eas­i­est way to make someone’s day is to think about who has made your work eas­ier or bet­ter lately, and then go and say Thank You. Yes, these words have a lot of power when they are said from the heart. And with just a lit­tle more effort, you can dou­ble its power. Our over-reliance in elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tions has meant that the art of writ­ing is becom­ing an ancient prac­tice; use this well known fact to your advan­tage and write a Thank you note with pen and paper. I guar­an­tee the recip­i­ent will not for­get your gesture!

There are many other ways of giv­ing on a daily basis, with­out hav­ing to spend a lot of time or energy on them:

1. Smile & Lis­ten: As you meet peo­ple in the cor­ri­dor, kitchen, or water cooler, choose one moment a day when you give your undi­vided atten­tion to the per­son you are meet­ing, Smile at them, ask them how they are, and then lis­ten. Many of us give out ‘How are yous’ with­out even wait­ing to hear the answer; make someone’s day by giv­ing them 5 min­utes of your time and actu­ally lis­ten­ing to their stories.
2. Teach them how to fish rather than giv­ing them the fish they ask for. As peo­ple come to you for help, choose instances where you can extend their skills by coach­ing them on how to do what they asked you about rather than sim­ply doing it for them.
3. Offer a shoul­der to lean on. Do you see some­one who needs moral sup­port? Per­haps the stress of it all is too much, or they look like they could use 5 min­utes of respite; offer emo­tional and moral sup­port to some­one who is going through a dif­fi­cult time. You’ll be sur­prised at the dif­fer­ence that you can make sim­ply by say­ing “I am here to lis­ten if you need me” to some­one in distress.
4. Give some­one a ride. If you’re at a busi­ness func­tion, keep an eye out for those with­out trans­port and offer them a ride home, espe­cially if it means only a small detour from your planned return trip. To you it may rep­re­sent another 5 min­utes of your day, but it may save an hour or more of travel time for the other person.
5. Give dis­count vouch­ers to those who will enjoy them. Have you ever noticed the vouch­ers at the back of your shop­ping dock­ets? Take a minute to cut a few of them out, and keep an eye for peo­ple at work or else­where that may need them or enjoy them. Even bet­ter, buy an Enter­tain­ment Book and carry some vouch­ers with you to give away ran­domly to peo­ple you meet at the shops, the supermarket,etc.

Once you get started using these ideas, and start get­ting ‘In the zone’ of mak­ing someone’s day on a reg­u­lar basis, I rec­om­mend you read this arti­cle that will help you turn that habit into a daily rou­tine. And if you really want to make a big­ger dif­fer­ence in the world, then make sure you ask peo­ple to Pass the kind­ness For­ward if they ever ask how they can pay you back for your gen­eros­ity. With these sim­ple words, you can cre­ate a snow­ball of kind­ness that will leave a path of smiles along the way.

Tagged as: Fish! series, Happiness, Ken Blanchard, kindness, Life skills, Pass it forward