Recently I saw a post that gave me a new perspective on judging how my day, week or month is going. Instead of measuring your success by the chores or job you completed try measuring it by how you touched other peoples lives. How many smiles did you share? How many kind words did you say? Who did you encourage today? Just imagine how much happier you would be.

We tend to gauge our success by what we have personally accomplished, which of course is very important, but what if we gauged our success by how happy we were and how happy we made people around us feel. Making others happy automatically make us happier. When you smile and someone smiles back you feel good and so does that person. You never know how much that simple gesture could change a persons day.

Instagramer the.phoenix.man said the following. Judge each day by the number of people you helped, the number of “Thank you” you said and the number of smiles you shared. What great advice this is! If we all followed this advise the world would be a whole lot different.

Maybe we should set a goal; today I will help 1 person, I will say Thank you for the little things that people don’t expect to be thanked for and I will smile. Just smiling can improve your mood so sharing that smile improves the mood of the day for 2 people. We are all in this together so we might as well work to make our days the best that they can be.

You and I can change the world with just a smile. I know that it sounds cliche but it’s true. Kindness is contagious and it’s something we can all share. It doesn’t cost us anything to hold a door, to offer to carry a bag or lift it into a car for someone struggling, maybe just telling a young mother struggling with a toddler tantrum that they are doing a great job, how about sharing your leftovers from dinner with a homeless person when you leave the restaurant? Each of these things could lift that person up and completely change their day. You have the power to change lives with just a simple act of kindness.

My husband and I always take out leftovers with us from a restaurant and when we are in a city we look for a person to share them with. We have been so touched by the gratitude of the people we’ve shared food with, people have blessed us and cried because they are so thankful. I took my 3 year old granddaughter into a store and told her that we were buying water and a danish for the man outside because it was so hot and he wasn’t able to buy it. I explained to her how we always help others when we can. She was so excited and so happy that she was able to help someone and the man told her how much he appreciated it and what a special little girl she was to help him. I hope these moments stick with her. If we teach the next generation to be kind the world could be a much better place.

So let’s go out today, tomorrow and the next day thinking about how we can change the world that day. And when we lay our heads on our pillow at night we can look back on the many ways we helped others. Each day you will get more excited and happier because of sharing just this little bit of yourself. So let’s make a pact, let’s go out and share a smile and a kind word and see whose life we can change today.