What are the actions that soften the heart and bring God's mercy upon His servant?

Among the ways that soften the heart and instill mercy within it are: remembering Allah with humility, visiting graves and remembering death, comforting and feeding the needy, and caring for orphans and being kind to them. And among the most important of these is supplicating to Allah Almighty, in addition to striving against the self to acquire mercy and remembering Allah’s reward for the merciful, for the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "Those who show mercy will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful. Show mercy to those on earth and the One in the heavens will show mercy to you."