"We know how to make tiny habits by now: set a goal, choose small steps, cue the behavior, reward the behavior. Why is it that even when we do those things, we can't seem to follow through? I think we need something bigger than habits for true transformation. And that thing is love."
"In a 2024 study of 193 college students, researchers gave students a 42-item 'acts of kindness checklist' including taking on extra work to lighten someone's load, putting out or returning a neighbor's trash, and making conversation with a cashier. Acts of kindness improved their well-being and reduced anxiety and loneliness."
"You can add a little kindness to your goal-setting and ask yourself: How can you link this change to helping others? Does this choice benefit more than just you? How can you do this with more openness, playfulness, and care?"
Traditional habit-formation methods often fail despite proper implementation. Love serves as a deeper motivational force for true transformation. Buddhist philosophy identifies four immeasurables—kinds of love—that unlock sustainable motivation and energy. Kind love (metta) involves performing acts of kindness that improve well-being and reduce anxiety. Steady love (mudita) celebrates others' progress to boost personal motivation. Compassionate love (karuna) transforms setbacks into data rather than failures. Equanimous love (upekkha) maintains balance during challenges. Integrating these approaches into goal-setting creates meaningful, interconnected objectives that extend beyond personal achievement to benefit others.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]