If you have something nice to say, SAY IT!
A personal case study on the benefits of being kind to others
During a visit to my brother and sister-in-law’s house, I noticed a piece of wall art that caught my attention. It said:
This was the opposite of the saying many of us were told in our childhood: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” While we were encouraged to silence negative and rude thoughts, we were not always encouraged to express positive thoughts and observations. How often do we think nice thoughts, but don’t say them aloud? For me, it is often. Recently, I wondered what might happen if I made a conscious effort to share my kind thoughts with the people who spark them. Research on improving happiness and mental well being suggests performing acts of kindness toward others actually benefits our own well-being (I wrote more about this and the research behind it here). Basically, being nice is a win-win for ourselves and those around us. So, I decided to make a committed effort to share my positive thoughts with others. I want to share with you how I went about this and what happened.
My Personal Kindness Experiment
It was important to me to be intentional about sharing kindness with others. First, I wanted to put thought and effort into compliments they would be meaningful. Second, I wanted the recipient to be able to absorb the compliment. How often do we dismiss verbal compliments we receive? Even when we believe them, they can be easy to forget. It was important to me to share my thoughts in writing so others could absorb them more fully and keep them around if they chose. Sometimes we don’t see in ourselves what others see in us. Even if we do, there is no harm in being reminded of our strengths again and again.
Next, I had to choose how I wanted to present each compliment, so I found some inspiration from my childhood. When I was in the second grade each student in the class got a turn to be the recipient of Warm Fuzzies from fellow classmates. Each student was asked to share something they liked about the featured student. Our teacher wrote down each compliment and gave the student a unique warm fuzzy packet. It was a special day when you were chosen to receive warm fuzzies. I kept my packet well into adulthood.
I decided to adapt the warm fuzzy strategy and created award certificates that I customized for people in my life. I used a simple template and created custom “awards” for people I knew. I wanted it to be simple and uncomplicated so I could sustain it over time. I focused on qualities or actions that I valued or appreciated and created some simple guidelines to follow. I decided to send out a few each week using good old fashioned mail. I wanted each one to be an unexpected surprise. We don’t get much by way of snail mail anymore, especially awards and compliments. Since I like receiving “fun” mail, I thought others might appreciate it too.
Certificate Guidelines:
Compliments had to be genuine and authentic. Nothing fake was allowed.
They could be simple or complex, funny or serious, literal or creative, but they had to be kind. Sarcasm or backhanded compliments were not allowed.
There were no limits to the number of certificates someone could be awarded This took the pressure off of trying to create the “perfect” certificate and provided a way to continue this project indefinitely if I chose.
I only sent out a few each week. It needed to be sustainable in terms of time and effort.
Certificates had to be printed and mailed or hand delivered. No email/texting.
What Happened
How it impacted others
I wasn’t sure what others would think. Would they receive my compliment and gratitude as intended? Would they like it or think it was silly or stupid? It felt a little vulnerable expressing my authentic thoughts in this unique way. What I found was that people really liked them. I received photos of the opened certificates displayed on refrigerators, texts that said thank you and how they certificates brightened the recipients’ day, week, or even month! For some they evoked emotion and provided validation and support beyond what I would have expected. Overall, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and the certificates were well received.
How it impacted me
Overall, it felt really good! First, seeing how these certificates brightened others’ day was incredibly uplifting for me. Not only did seeing recipients’ responses, the act of creating the certificates was pleasant and something I looked forward to doing each week. As I thought about the people in my life, my brain started thinking of and looking for all of the positive things I could acknowledge about them. I thought about past experiences we shared and their strengths. I now keep sticky notes on my desk to jot down certificate ideas when they pop into my head. This exercise teaches our brain to look for positives rather than negatives which theoretically contributes to our positive mood and wellbeing. I highly recommend trying it out in your own way!
Conclusions
Over the past 4 weeks I have sent out 21 award certificates and have a list of more to send. This was truly a win-win for both recipients of the certificates and myself. Generating my award certificates has become an activity I enjoy and plan to continue. The truth is we all want to be seen and valued. There is a lot of pain and suffering in our world and much of it we can’t change. We can however find ways to make the world a little brighter in our own small way. Sometimes small actions can have big impacts on those around us.
For those of you who live in the States, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I am grateful to all of you for taking the time to read Mental Tune-Ups!
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What a gorgeous idea 😊 And, in the spirit of saying the positive thing - thanks for leading the way as a psychologist sharing your work here on Substack, you have helped inspire me to put myself out there too!
Such a brilliant and positive thing to do. We certainly don't do enough of this.
I guess its important to keep the awards relatively random to keep having an effect. I was reading an article the other day that was suggesting if an award became expected the impact can become counterproductive. ie people feel upset if they don't get it.
Their conclusion was that once was ok but if you do it twice in a row for something they do then you need to keep it going or they will feel unloved.
Very tricky to get that balance.