Cultivating Humility Part 2: Becoming Other Oriented

This post is Part 3 in a 3-part blog series on how to cultivate humility in your life. (If you missed the first post, you can find it here.)

The second part of humility involves being other-oriented rather than self-focused. Humble people aren’t just focused on their own wants and needs, but they are in-tune with the wants and needs of others.

This is a tough attitude to cultivate if you’re not used to it. By nature, most of us are selfish. We are fully aware of our own perspective, as well as our needs and wants. So it makes sense that we would be focused on our own stuff most of the time.

To work toward being more other-oriented in our daily lives, I think we need to start to schedule activities that encourage us to focus on others.

At first, it won’t feel natural. Research has shown that it takes about two months for a behavior to become a habit. Before that time, you need to schedule it in like you would a dentist appointment. Over time, becoming other-oriented will start to feel more natural. Eventually, it will be a part of who you are.

So my recommendation is this: Before you go to bed tonight, think about one thing you could do tomorrow that would benefit someone else. It could be something small, like writing a hand-written letter to an old friend you have lost touch with, or buying a sandwich for a homeless person. Write it down on a piece of paper and do it the next day. Try to schedule in one thing each day that you do for someone else. If you do this regularly, over time you will cultivate a more humble and other-oriented mindset.

Discussion: What do you think about the idea of scheduling in one thing per day that benefits someone else? Try it out for a few days and see what happens.