In the regular This Is Me Challenge, I have team members and have to schedule out the challenges in advance…but here I don’t, so even when I schedule out the challenges, I have the flexibility to change the challenge at the last minute! This is good because I just read this post and felt inspired that I needed to use this challenge instead of the one I planned.
When have you helped brighten someone’s day, and how did it make you feel?
It may sound a bit conceited at first, but as I thought about it, isn’t it okay to record that you’re a compassionate person and that serving and helping makes you feel good inside? Anyway, those were my thoughts…
You could list a few nice things you’ve done for others and write how you felt. You can focus on just one nice thing and give details about it and how it helped you be better. Write about how someone helping you helped you realize how you could help others. You can even record some goals to do better at helping others in a specific way (like Jocelyn mentions on her post linked above).
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So here’s my little story…I decided to focus on how making some new friends as an adult has helped me, and how that inspired me to do the same things for others. I know this sounds a little conceited…but I guess it’s good to sometimes give yourself a little credit, right?
Last February I was unexpectedly invited by a complete stranger in another Ward to come to her house to exercise with a bunch of other young moms. (We had a mutual Facebook friend.) I was actually quite nervous to go exercise at a stranger’s house with a bunch of people I didn’t even know. When I showed up, the gals were all so nice to me and I made instant friends.
Ever since I’d become a mother, I’d never really had any friends that I did things with—we’d moved and my family was all that mattered. I'd never made time for others.
That first day I was there exercising, I was invited to go to another gals house for lunch. I met a few more gals from their Ward and made even more friends. These gals love to do things together and are always willing to invite any newcomers. I have been invited to do many things with these gals, and I have really enjoyed having friends to do things with once again! Sometimes we did things during the day and let all the kids play, and other times we’ve done things in the evenings without kiddos. It has helped me become a better mother to have time away from the kids, to see examples of other good mothers, to form friendships with people I can talk to about things, and has also helped my boys learn to make new friends.
Because of my new friends examples, I’ve realized that my neighborhood is in need of the same type of friendships. (As far as I knew no one in my Ward ever did things like that—there was a lack of social gatherings—but then again maybe I just wasn’t invited. )I’ve had a few little get-togethers, and I even hosted a lunch this afternoon with some of the gals in the neighborhood.
One friend said to me the other day, “You are so good, because we all think we should do more of these types of things, but you’re the only one who actually does them.” After the lunch, a bunch of my friends mentioned how glad they were to get out of the house and do something with someone! (We are all stay-at-home mom’s, so we don’t get to socialize much, other than limited time at Church.)
It has made me feel good that these gals in my neighborhood are starting to form friendships—friendships that will hopefully last a lifetime! I know I never would have ever thought about hosting these little get-togethers if is wasn’t for that one little invitation and some of my new friends who’ve been such good examples to me!
