100 (Give or Take) Acts of Kindness Recap

If you saw my previous post, you know I set out to complete 100 small acts of kindness in one week, an experiment I thought would be fun, uplifting, and fairly easy to stick to. It wasn’t exactly life-changing, but it did surprise me in a few ways.

The first couple days felt like a high.

I was all in and found myself looking for opportunities everywhere: offering compliments, checking in on people, writing kind notes, letting someone cut in line. Easy. I even got my kids involved, and they were so cute about it, brainstorming ideas with me, helping me execute a few of the acts, and getting genuinely excited every time we did something kind together. Their enthusiasm made it even more fun. A few of their contributions pictured below...sticky notes placed around our neighorhood. I love the sweetness and simplicity of children.

Then day three hit… and I hit a wall.

Suddenly it felt like a burden. I was tired, unmotivated, and to be honest, I started regretting posting about it at all. It shifted from “I get to do this” to “I have to do this,” and it wasn’t cute.

Something else caught me off guard.

When people did kind things for me that week, it somehow made me feel like I was behind. Like their kindness somehow canceled out mine and I had to “make up for it” to keep my count at 100. (Spoiler alert: that’s not how kindness works.) It’s interesting how our minds can twist something as beautiful as receiving into guilt or comparison, like someone else’s goodness somehow means we need to do more instead of just accepting it with gratitude. I had to remind myself that kindness isn’t a competition. No one's keeping score. It’s something we’re all meant to pass around freely, without needing to earn our place in it.

Another interesting notice...

Each day, as I tracked my progress toward my goal of 100, I found myself hesitant to count anything I would’ve done naturally. Checking in on a struggling friend? Doesn’t count. Helping an older woman with her grocery cart? Doesn’t count. Why? Because it didn’t feel like I was going above and beyond, it just felt like my normal behavior. But isn’t that the whole point? To be someone who tries to be kind, even in small and simple ways? That realization surprised me. I think I’d unconsciously decided that kindness only “counted” if it felt like a stretch or took extra effort. But the small and simple things matter too. I had to remind myself that just because something feels instinctive doesn’t mean it’s insignificant, and maybe those are the habits that matter most.

Midway through the week, a friend left a comment that made me stop and think.

She said she wanted to join in on the challenge, even if it was just by being kind to herself.

…wait. What?

I hadn’t even considered self-kindness as part of the challenge. And wow, I needed it. I started noticing how often I rushed myself, criticized myself, or expected way more than I’d ask from anyone else. So I added a few more acts of kindness, to me and that was a game-changer. And the high I had in the beginning started to return.

And somewhere along the way, kindness started coming back to me too.

A few unexpected messages from friends, some thoughtful conversations, little moments of connection I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t paying attention. Nothing huge, but it mattered.

Turns out, kindness has a funny way of working both directions.

I don’t know if I hit exactly 100. I'm pretty sure I did but I honestly stopped counting around 80 and just let myself be present. What I do know is that being intentional about kindness changed the way I moved through my week. And that’s something I’d like to carry with me… just without the checklist.