Each Day, Grow a Little Bit Wiser and Kinder

Let me ask you a hard question: do you act smarter than you did last year, or the year before that? Ideally, your answer should be yes.

The hard truth is that many people make the same foolish mistakes, year after year.

We eat a bit too much and exercise too little, so that each year we add a few pounds.

We let our egos get in the way at work, so that our careers do not advance as quickly as they should.

Instead of reading to advance our knowledge, we just keep relying on our existing beliefs and attitudes, which frequently lead us to misjudgments.

Does this sort of behavior make any sense for members of a supposedly intelligent race? Not really.

Rather than weigh you down with a heaping pile of potentially-dubious psychobabble, I'd like to offer a simple prescription for ensuring that your life is one that makes you proud:

Day after day, be a little bit kinder and a tad wiser than you were the day before.

Be kind, because compassion makes you stronger, not weaker. Kindness ensures that you be help the people around you reach their potential. If you work on a team, kindness will strengthen that team. If you lead others, kindness will make you a more effective leader.

Be wise, because in an information-based world like ours, intelligence is what makes it possible for you to tell the difference between useful insights and deadly traps.

Here's the thing about incremental improvement: it doesn't require much explanation or preparation. I can't tell you how to be 42% smarter, but I can tell you that if you even slightly exceed your performance from yesterday, you will be starting a highly positive trend.

For example, PUSH Wellness is an incentive program that companies use to encourage incremental improvements in employee behavior with regards to health; employees get cash rewards in return for verified incremental improvements.

So today, read a tad more than you did yesterday... or reach out to someone smarter than you... or explore Google Scholar... or ask a few more questions... or simply listen more and talk less than you did yesterday.

And as you do this, try to be a little kinder, too.

Be slightly kind and wiser today... is that too much to ask of yourself? If not, ask it tomorrow, too.

Bruce Kasanoff is the author of How to Self-Promote without Being a Jerk, a simple little book that can help you overcome one of the toughest career challenges. It is available exclusively on Amazon.

Find Bruce at Kasanoff.com or on Twitter @BruceKasanoff.

Image: CaptPiper/Flickr