Four Strategies for Bringing More Kindness Into Your Life

Kindness toward others increases happiness

“Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.” — Leo Tolstoy

Kindness enriches our lives. When we act with kindness, difficult things become simpler and the mundane becomes pleasant and bright.

But as a species, we often fall short of this human characteristic, which can be unequivocally evasive despite always being available.

Have you ever noticed that we often want more kindness towards ourselves and others, yet we become easily enraged when someone is unkind to us, like a car cutting us off, or a rude neighbor or colleague? While this says nothing about us as a person, why do we expect kindness without giving it out ourselves?

And how would society change if kindness was the pillar from which everything else stemmed, with a renewed resolve for moral betterment?

Here are some ideas to live with more kindness:

1. Start by showing kindness to yourself.

Have you found that it is much easier to show kindness to others when you’ve shown yourself kindness? Things like getting enough sleep, exercise, and the right diet can make a huge difference in how we show up in life and consequently treat others. If we don’t show ourselves kindness, it’s difficult to pay that forward to the rest of the world.

Like many things, it’s a learned habit to be kind to yourself in the face of your flaws and failures — we all have them. But it’s how we treat ourselves in the face of these imperfections that trickles out into the rest of our lives.

Brene Brown famously said:

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.”

Because at the heart of the matter, to be human is to spring toward our greatest moral potentialities, only to stumble over the factualities of our automatic reflexes. But to be a better human is to keep striving anyway.

2. Strive for compassion by showing up with kindness.

It’s important to remember that we all have difficulties, challenges, and traumas, most invisible to the naked eye.

For example, when someone is rude to us, we may automatically assume that it is about us. But what if that rude customer service rep, coworker, or neighbor had recently learned of a friend’s death? We would definitely give them the benefit of the doubt, possibly offering advice or support.

Why don’t we give everyone this benefit of the doubt, including ourselves?

When we act with gentle compassion, we are paying service to our shared humanity. We recognize that not everyone is perfect all of the time and that we all make mistakes. Give others this grace, and you may find that it shows up in your life for yourself far more often.

Instead of showing anger toward others over their human imperfections, what if we tried to support each other instead?

Ask an upset coworker if everything is okay.

Offer to bring a healthy lunch or dessert to someone who is struggling.

If you see anyone visibly upset, ask if there is anything that you can do for them.

This may be the only kindness this person receives, and you may just change their life or inspire them to envision a kinder world.

3. Kindness toward others increases happiness.

Perform an act of service for someone, and they will usually reciprocate that kindness.

A recent study, conducted by the Department of Psychology of Tohoku Gakuin University in Japan, examined how kindness influences happiness. The results suggest that by recording moments of kindness throughout a week, happiness and kindness are substantially increased.

Another study published last year in the Journal of Social Psychology showed the correlation between kindness and life satisfaction. The results indicated that performing simple acts of kindness for one week has a positive effect on happiness. There was also a positive correlation between how many kind acts were performed and the corresponding increases in happiness. The more kind acts shown towards others, the greater the increase in happiness.

It is apparent that being kind to others, both friends and strangers, boosts our happiness and well-being. And performing acts of kindness clearly results in an increase in overall life satisfaction.

4. Make kindness a conscious choice.

Kindness is for our soul as health is for our body: priceless, and not as easily noticed when we have it compared to when we don’t.

And the measure of genuine kindness, which is different from simply being nice or polite, is usually discernable in those challenging circumstances when we must choose to rise above the reflex toward its opposite, inflamed by anger, fear, and uncertainty. This is our essential choice.

We know that we only have control over ourselves. We cannot make another person behave the way that we want, but we can choose for ourselves to be beacons of light, always striving to be kind.

“Let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.” — Carl Sagan