Today's Kindness #195: October 19, 2022
☀️Evaluate Your Life☀️(T-5 Days)
T-5 days until our 200th "Today's Kindness"! For today's activity, here are some kindness ideas if you ever need some! Also, check out today's thank you to a great organization on our FB or IG!
Evaluate Your Life Day comes up every year on October 19, offering a time to reflect on our lives with the aim of becoming better versions of ourselves. It gives us the opportunity to check in with ourselves and assess whether we're still on the right track.
Evaluate Your Life Day is all about self-evaluation and self-assessment, which involves assessing yourself in terms of what goals you've achieved. This assessment is carried out with the aim of becoming better and not for the purpose of self-judgment or criticism.
In 1988, the Self-Evaluation Maintenance (SEM) model was formulated by Abraham Tesser, a distinguished professor of research at the University of Georgia. The theory posits that two people who are in a relationship boost their psychological contentment by carrying out comparisons to each other. The theory assumes two standpoints: one, that a person will attempt to boost or enhance their own self-evaluation, and two, that this self-evaluation is influenced by one's relationship with others.
The theory also advances that a person's self-evaluation may increase when a person close to them also has a positive experience. This balance goes both ways and is referred to as reflection or comparison. In reflection, the closer the relationship, the greater the success. However, in comparison, the success of a close other may decrease the person's self-evaluation as a result of negative comparison.
So on Evaluate Your Life Day, it's important, even when faced with unpleasant aspects of life, to maintain a positive outlook. Evaluate your life through a lens of kindness, and not judgment.
Evaluate
Today is a great day to ruminate and evaluate different aspects of life. Take stock of the goals you've reached and those you still hope to accomplish.
Re-calibrate
It's also a day to make resolutions. What are some things you can do to make your life healthier and better?
Celebrate
You've come a long way! No matter what you're going through in life, you are stronger than the person you were yesterday, so take time out to celebrate the little wins.
"The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently."
~ Pema Chödrön