Doing nice things for people makes us feel good and with luck it makes others feel good too. Today is positive thinking day so I thought I’d throw out a challenge.
A few years ago I was sitting in my cold house wrapped in blankets. The heating had conked out and I was cold. I told Twitter I was cold. A few minutes later I received a direct message from Adverts.ie asking for my address.
A couple of days later a parcel arrived in the post containing a hot water bottle and some hot chocolate sachets. It made me smile, and later on it made me warm. Needless to say it’s Adverts.ie I think of each winter as I pull that hot water bottle out of the cupboard.
Creating little moments for people like this can add a shine to the world. When I visit Twitter I’m often disappointed at the amount of negative sentiment there. It’s almost as if we’ve turned it into our own private sounding board. If anyone does anything wrong we can be sure Twitter will find out about it and report on it.
I’d love this to change. I know I can’t do it single handedly but maybe there are things we can all do to make the online space a more positive one.
I’ve come up with five ways you can spread positivity online. I’m calling them random acts of positivity. Imagine if you did one of these once a week. How good would you feel? And you’d know by the end of the week that you’d make 52 people a little bit happier too.
5 random acts of positivity for Positive Thinking Day
1. Make someone’s day on Twitter
I did a search for ‘having a bad day’ on Twitter this morning and found loads of tweets. Find someone who is having a bad day, a hard time or is feeling glum and send them a customised meme, image or tweet. Take a quick look at their profile and tweets to find out what they are interested in and include that in your message.
You can’t make everything OK but you might make someone smile.
2. Leave a 5 star review on Facebook
Find a Facebook page or local business and leave them a 5 star review. Imagine how they will feel when they log on to Facebook and see that someone has recommended them. I still get excited every time someone leaves me a positive podcast review.
3. Reward a follower
Send a real life thank you card to one of your Twitter followers or Facebook likers. Choose the next person who comments, tweets or reply. It’s always lovely getting mail and a thank you card is bound to put a spring in someone’s step.
4. Compliment someone
Go scroll through Instagram, search the hashtag #selfie. Leave a comment on someone’s photo complimenting them.
I recently saw a sign in Dublin saying ‘You’re looking great today’ even though it wasn’t directed at anyone specifically it made me smile that someone would go to the effort to spread positivity.
5. Contribute to a Fundit campaign
Fundit is a crowdfunding site. Select a personal project and contribute to their campaign. Look at supporting someone who is struggling to get donations to make your donation extra special.
There are countless ways to spread positivity online. What do you do? What other random acts can you recommend to others? Leave me a comment below.
Get a headstart on Google Analytics 4 & understand the lingo with the GA4 phrase book
