Do you love to go on road trips? We just got back from one chock-full of intentional acts of kindness, our #KindnessQuest 3.0!
What is a #KindnessQuest?
What is a #KindnessQuest? I am glad you asked!
Let me tell you how it began. For many years my family has been doing these epic road trips (often cross-country!). A few years back I heard a whisper to not just make these trips about us and for our fun. And, for me I had to broaden beyond vacation survival (mamas, we all know vacations can be the opposite of rest!). Instead, I knew I needed to practice being intentionally others-centered on them.
Soon after that, with the vital genius and the help of my housemate, Meg, the #KindnessQuest was born!
On a basic level, the #KindnessQuest is making your vacation intentional about loving others through acts of kindness.
Or you can do the full shebang, with knighting, fun activities along the way and making it into a spectacular adventure and an epic “quest” (I’m still working on making the guide and resources for that).
Regardless of what path you take, intentionally taking a week for daily acts of kindness can change people. In fact, through it, you can raise world changers!
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What Acts of Kindness Did We Do on #KindnessQuest 3.0?
I’ll be talking more about our #KindnessQuest 3.0 here this week. Here in the highlights on my stories are what we did each day for our acts of kindness. My favorite act of kindness was passing out cold drinks to #BlackLivesMatter protesters on a corner of a hot street we were driving by. I actually thought it would be cool to go to the other side of the street too, to give drinks to other protesters that we didn’t really agree with! However, we were a little short on time (and $) so this time we opted to not do that.
How Was This #KindnessQuest Different From Others?
This trip was a little less focused on making a huge deal of the #KindnessQuest, even though we did do acts of kindness daily. It felt like it was part of our road trip culture, which I really liked. Like a good tradition, rather than a “how does this work?” We skipped the certificates and knighthood, but we did write on the car, howl like wolves, and a few other fun things that have been part of the other #KindnessQuests we’ve done.
New this time, was writing nicknames for our journey on the van windows and calling each other by these names through the trip. That was fun!
Connecting with my youngest about the essence of kindness was probably the most important thing on this trip. He’s always kinda tagged along before, not really participating too much with understanding. But this year, he was interested in what “kindness” means (for starters, not annoyingly yelling “Hi! Hi! Hi!” at other hikers or lying or stealing). My older kids worked on other areas of character growth too–confidence and overcoming fears. I was proud of them because when we asked them at the end how they grew, they were each able to see growth in their own lives. It wasn’t so much about the actual acts of kindness, it was more about becoming who they are born to be (which includes being more fully alive as they make a difference).
Your Turn To Do a #KindnessQuest!
If you still want to take some time this summer for a staycation #KindnessQuest or want to incorporate one into your coming vacation, I hope you do so! If you need ideas, grab a copy of my free Intentional Acts of Kindness checklist for 45 ideas on ways to begin:
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