We often see and hear those who have given immense amounts of time and means celebrated. By media, by our peers, even with Nobel Peace Prizes. Most of us feel a desire to give and help others in some way. At the same time, many of us feel hesitant, or fearful even, that stepping into giving will require more than we have, or that the cost will be too great in terms of time, effort or means.

So, how do we reconcile our urge to give with our fear of it costing too much?

One way is to stop giving and start being generous.

What does that mean? I can hear you saying it. It’s ok, let’s look at it.

There are 4 key ways we can stop giving and start being generous. And it all focuses on how we connect with others, and less on what we give.

1) Listen to your heart. We all have those moments when we have a thought that we should do something for someone. Whether it is say hello, help them pick up something that dropped, stop and help or something else. In the moment we have that thought, we choose to listen or to ignore it. When we ignore it, we start of process of justification that the Arbinger Institute calls “self-deception”. We start to tell ourselves all the reasons why we cannot do what our heart prompted us to do. And it usually involves telling ourselves untruths about ourselves or others: “I am too busy”, “I couldn’t possibly do that”, “That is too uncomfortable or inconvenient”, “Why can’t they do it themselves?” , “They created their problem in the first place”, “They might get upset with me”, “If they were nicer to me I would help”, etc. We end up creating a false image of reality that disconnects us from ourselves and from others in order to justify our not listening to our heart.

So the first step is to practice listening. Try an experiment and pay attention what happens to your feelings about yourself and others as you listen to the thoughts you have to help in little things.

2) Pay attention to what people need. You may find yourself saying, I rarely get a chance to give or help someone. I just don’t have the time or means to do so. But giving is not defined by how much time, effort or means it requires. Giving is simply helping someone meet their needs. Most of the time, the most impactful givers simply do lots of small things to fill needs of those around them. They are driven by a spirit of generosity rather than checking off “helping” on their list. They listen to their hearts and do lots of small things that they observe people need around them. Psychologist Adam Grant has spent a lot of time researching successful givers. What he has found is that the most successful givers spend lots of time doing “five minute favors”. They see needs, and do lots of small things to help. This helping builds connections with people around them.

So stop evaluating whether you have “done enough” and start just watching for what people need.

3) Be able to say no so you can say yes. It is easy for givers to get burnt out. Why? Because in most places, there are also takers. And many givers also try to be “agreeable”, or those who are pleasant and get along well with others. The challenge is that being generous and filling others’ needs sometimes requires the ability to say “no”. And one of the biggest challenges is being able to see A) when what someone needs is not what they are asking for or B) when you need to say “no” in order to meet your own needs and be able to continue to give in the future. When we cultivate the ability to see and discuss the needs of others and ourselves, we strengthen the trust and connection we have with others, rather than just strengthening a “give and take” or transactional connection with others based only on what we can give or get.

To be generous, we need to be able to see needs (our own and others’) and not simply give whatever is asked to be agreeable. We need to recognize that connection is based on trust and empathy, not on doing whatever someone wants, but on doing what is needed.

4) Let yourself care without needing to control. One of the greatest challenges in giving is that, often, we open our hearts and care and love about someone and want to “fix” all their problems. In reality, the desire to “fix” their problems often leads us to focusing on grand gestures of helping, to giving when we need to say no, or to trying to make their lives look like ours. When we try to “fix” others, we usually end up burning out or impeding that person’s ability to grow and find their own strength and their own way. Perhaps the hardest skill to learn in being generous is to care, to help, to see needs while still focusing on helping someone be who THEY want to be. But, if we learn this skill, we are better able to sustain being generous. In reality, this is about allowing our hearts and love to cover more people, even if that love sometimes brings pain of seeing them struggle. It means being able to sit with someone in all their imperfections and needs, and giving in the way that will help them the most. And many times, it means simply staying with them while they figure some things out, offering love and encouragement.

In the end, learning to give is less about doing more and bigger things, and more about caring in a way that you see others, see what they need and walk with them in their path of growth. It is often about learning to stop just giving and to start being generous in our thoughts and intentions.