Welcome back!! The winter time can be hard for a lot of people, especially if you LOVE warm weather like me, and it is always important to help the people in your life out! This week I chose to write encouragement notes to the people who live on my block!

I love cheering people up as well as surprising the people in my life and notes are the perfect way to do that. Writing anything from a couple words to a paragraph or more can completely change the direction someone’s day is going. I know there have been so many days where I did not feel like even getting up or going out in the cold to come to school but my friends would message me and say they could not wait to see me and it was so encouraging! It created a huge sense of gratitude and always gave me the little jump start to the day that I needed.

I like to think I am a pretty positive person and normally carry the most energy in a group of people which is how I help other people out.

Since I realized this, I have tried my best to encourage people more than normal and take into consideration the fact that everyone has rough days. I have always been told there is something “different” about my energy and I have found that to be a good thing. I have been able to use this strength and make an impact in the people’s lives around me.

When I started this, I was trying to think of different ways I could help the people that are around me a lot and I immediately thought about the people that live near me; we are in such close parameter of each other yet half of us rarely talk to each other about our days. A big majority of the people on my street are parents and I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to help them out since children can be difficult sometimes.

My inspiration really came from an experience I had at Blue Moon, my place of work, last summer. We had a couple rocks left outside our windows throughout the season with encouraging words written on them. After a little research we found they were called “Rock Kindness for Cloey”. For more information and to see what other rocks look like go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/rockkindnessforcloeygroup/?scrlybrkr=762df89a .

To do my version of this I thought of a few notes that were simple yet had a huge impact; such as, “Have a great day today” and “You are amazing, remember that”. Once I had about fifteen I stayed up a little later than normal and put each note on the door of my neighbors so they would see it in the morning when they left for work!

I absolutely loved doing this and it created a sense of joy and encouragement within myself to get out and actually do better instead of just talking about it. Random acts of kindness can help people in ways you could never think of because people are always wrestling with more than what is visible on the surface.

I encourage and challenge you to reach out to the people in and around your life this week, even if it is outside of your comfort zone, because it could affect them in such an amazing way. Have a fantastic week!!