Tuesday 24 April 2012

The count down to paying it forward 2012

Like all amazing things, this movement started out as an idea and has grown and grown.  The film is 12  years old!  I had heard of the concept quite a while ago and thought that it was a good one.  It remained in my consciousness.

More recently someone invited me to join the Pay It Forward 2012 Facebook event.  I did and then did not think much about it.  This morning I was thinking about how I wanted to spend my day; what I had energy for and I found myself going to the pay it forward Facebook page.  That led me to the trailer for the original film.  It's definitely worth seeing if you have not done so already.  I had tears in my eyes as I watched it.

I was moved by Sandra's pledge to practise this throughout the year as it fits with something which is very important to me at the moment - a focus on changing the way we do business.  She is offering to send people in the UK a set of her pay it forward cards.  I look forward to receiving mine in the next few days.

 For the first time I read the introductory blurb by Sandra Richardson and discovered that the big day was two days away.  Only yesterday I responded to a friend's email for help.  She needs practical support to get the word out about her forthcoming art exhibition so I offered to spend Thursday with her, showing her how to use social media to publicise her message.  I am so thrilled that I can put my practical skills to such use for a really good cause.

That was synchronicity but it led me to think about what more I could do.  After all the idea is to do three things for three different people.  So far I only had one.  I immediately thought that it would be good to involve the local primary school which my girls attend.  I have emailed the head asking her if she will do an assembly on it and offered to come and support her if she does.  I am waiting to hear back from her.

My last commitment was to get it out there so I posted a short message about Pay it Forward in four groups I am a member of on Facebook - three of which are full of life coaches, so for many it will be a way of being already.  I also tweeted about it and encouraged my co-active colleagues to come and join the party.  The target is for three million acts of kindness to take place on Thursday.  There are loads of ideas about the kinds of things on the official website.  The great thing is that the acts can be anything from buying a stranger a coffee to offering an hour of your professional services for free.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone lived their life this way?  We would be so much richer for it.  What are you inspired to do?

2 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more with you Kate...I love the film, I love and live the concept as much as I can and I will share with others this post and do my bit!

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  2. Bless you Kath and thanks for that ;-) Ironically when I did do something on the actual day, it kind of back fired and I wasn't left with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Instead I was rather puzzled by what I perceived to be a lack of gratitude and others called rude. My coaching friends reminded me however that I had too many expectations hence how I felt. Ah well all these opportunities to learn ;-)

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