The RAK Directory
Random Acts of Kindness (RAKs), are acts of kindness you do for people you don’t know. It may be that they never know you did them. You don’t get thanked, but you secretly know you did the kind thing. I also like Specific Acts of Kindness, where maybe we do something kind for someone we know or whom we meet, even if they are still strangers. As well as being kind and therefore nice, daily RAKs are known to increase our sense of self-worth and happiness, both of which feed into creating success in your life and your acting career.
So here are some RAK ideas, from the big to the tiny, it doesn’t matter – they all have impact.
- Offering up your seat (or opening that door, letting that car go in front and variations on the theme)
- Making eye contact with people normally ignored; the homeless, the cashier or waiters
- Thank people such as the stranger cleaning the stations bins
- Paying someone a compliment (probably best t avoid the visual compliments, unless it is very clear you are not hitting on the stranger in question!)
- Telling someone’s manager that they did a good job
- Write someone or somewhere a review or testimonial
- Help a spider out of the bath
- Give blood
- Forgive someone (this does not need to be something they know about. I like Shakti Gawain’s forgiveness exercise, called the clearing exercise in Creative Visualisations
- Pass on your parking ticket when you have extra time
- Buy free range
- Start up a small charity direct debit
- Invest in a third world entrepreneur
- Have a conversation with someone, because you can see the human interaction matters to them, even though you are in a rush or find it dull
- Pick a snail up off the path
- Send loving thoughts to a stranger in need
- Smile
I would love to hear your ideas for RAKs in the comments below. For further tips on Emotional Resilience read my book, Talent isn’t Enough.
