Last night, like a good majority of the population, I made a few resolutions for the new year that I shared in my blog. I tried to keep my resolutions to simple, realistic, measurable goals I could truly stick to. I promised I wouldn’t make overinflated promises to myself like, “I’m going to be a better person,” “I’m going to do my part to change the world,” or “I’m going to be happier, less negative.” Of course, that’s not to say those aren’t high on my priority list. In fact, those are pretty universally accepted goals worth striving for. But what does that really mean? And what does one actually do to move towards reaching such lofty ambitions?

As I was contemplating other ways I could make some positive changes in my life (and hopefully the lives of others), I came across a pretty amazing website that gave me the jolt of inspiration I needed to kick-start my “new year, new me” plan. I was feeding my (let’s be honest, at this point fairly unhealthy) Stumbled Upon addiction when I fortuitously landed upon a groovy little site called 29-Day Giving Challenge. From the ‘About’ page:

Our collective mission at 29Gifts is to revive the giving spirit in the world. We change lives—and change the world—one gift at a time.

To join the cause, you simply sign up and fill out a brief profile indicating why you want to participate and what you hope to get out of the challenge. Once accepted (almost immediately), you pledge to give away 29 gifts to others in 29 days. The gift can be something tangible like food, money, used clothes…or something abstract like your smile, your time, kind words or thoughts. The website provides many great tools and resources to help support you in your personal gift giving challenge, including great ideas on how and what to give and a built-in blogging tool to help participants share their gift giving (and receiving) experiences with others. I’m in love.

Today is my first day of gift giving, and it’s an incredible way to start the new year. My first act of kindness was to purchase some ultra-cute gift tags from the site, which can be given in conjunction with my gifts…but are also awesome enough to be gifts unto themselves. Two very big bonuses: 1) the gift tags promote this remarkable little site and help me spread the word about something I think is pretty special and 2) my purchase doubles as a donation to keep the site up and running. To sweeten my gift, I also placed the donation widget on the sidebar of my website to encourage others to support a great cause.

I hope this will inspire others as much as it inspired me. If you do decide to participate, please leave me a comment or email me to let me know. Happy giving!