Create and preserve goodwill

Goodwill is a precious opportunity to have. Many of us underrate the power of goodwill and so we do very little to create, expand or preserve goodwill. Goodwill can be a good catalyst if not stimulus for success. Every effort must be done to continuously expand the total goodwill that one has in life.

Let us start by defining and describing goodwill. Goodwill is the friendly, helpful or cooperative attitude that we create in others towards ourselves. If you create goodwill for yourself from somebody, which makes the other person to go the extra mile to do certain good things that he or she may not ordinarily do for other people. With goodwill, people may let you off from things that others may be held responsible for or may be delayed for. You gain a lot of waivers through goodwill. This way, goodwill makes you operate fast, efficiently and effectively relative to situations where you have no goodwill at all.

It is difficult to stipulate exactly what you need to do to create goodwill. In short, goodwill is best created by simply being ‘nice’ with people. Below, we break this down into five things that you can do to create and sustain goodwill:

Create positive energies: In all interactions with people, make sure that you try hard to create positive rather than negative energies. When they are down, help them rise up. When they fail, give them hope and help them find alternative ways. When they lose hope make them believe again. Show them the way out of their problems. When they attempt big pursuits, believe in them and give them support and ‘morale’. When they want to try again, give them chance and show them your total support.

Remember them: Show them that you remember them. Remember them on their birthdays and send them birthday cards. Remember their major anniversaries. Once in a while, reach out to the people that count and people that you may need tomorrow. Show them that you still remember them continuously and show them that you value them.

Be generous: Be prepared to give out some gifts or some things for free – not just what you owe people, at least some of the times. Overwhelm them with your big-heartedness. Be soft to people, at least some of the times. Allow them to make some mistakes and show them that you understand. Be patient and accommodating.

Make investment: Do not expect to withdraw money in a bank if you never made the investment or never made a deposit. You need to invest today for the cash you want to withdraw tomorrow. Do not just expect people to do things for you without you doing anything for them. Help them, support them and do things for them well before you may need anything from them. Do not just do things for people you know for sure that you will need help from. Do not do things with the direct intention of harvesting back from them. Invest and deposit randomly and with a good spread across many people.

Remember everything is connected: Just as you need to invest randomly, you also need to be nice to many people including those not immediately expected to be of use to you because the whole world is connected. You may be hostile to a messenger at work but he may be a brother to someone you may badly need when you apply for that important life-saving loan at the bank, for example. Be nice to all people all the time – or at least most people most of the time.

We have discussed five things that you need to do in order to create and sustain good will. You can sustain goodwill by doing the above five things all the time and with all the people. But you also need to avoid losing the goodwill that you create. You can lose goodwill not just be stopping doing the above five things but also by doing bad things to others. Good luck as you create and preserve goodwill.