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What if I told you that making the world a better place is one of the most
wonderfully selfish things you can do? It's true. Making a difference is a great
way to amp up the energy in your life, with immediate results!
If you’re a “show-me-the-facts” kind of person, numerous studies have shown the positive effects of doing good, from the energizing effects of the “helper’s high” to long-term physical and mental health and wellness.
As an added benefit, in a world that often seems to be running amok, an action-focused commitment to making a positive impact can be an antidote to a sense of frustration and powerlessness. You can’t change THE world, but you can change YOUR world.
Make a Personal Meaning Plan
We’re surrounded by opportunities to make the world a better place in ways that are meaningful to us, but most of us are so wrapped up in what’s happening in our own lives that we don’t notice them.
To help put those opportunities on your radar screen, spend some time
creating what I think of as a Personal Meaning Plan. Don’t worry, it won’t
require a weekend retreat. Even mulling it over on your daily commute and
jotting down some notes can be a great start. It's less about creating an end
product and more about simply raising your awareness.
There are seven ways to energize your life by changing your world. Every way I have been able to think of to make the world a better place falls into one (or more) of these categories. These are the basic areas to explore in your Personal Meaning Plan. They are:
- Your work
- Volunteering
- Putting your money to work
- Everyday life choices (e.g., sustainability)
- Interactions with people
- Energy and intentions
- How you live your life
You’ll find a brief description of each of those categories below. To get you started on your Personal Meaning Plan exploration, here are some questions to ask for each category.
- How am I making a difference here (or am I making a difference at all)?
- Do I want to make a difference here? (There are no “shoulds.”)
- What kind of difference do I want to make? What inspires me? What feels meaningful?
- What’s important to me?
- Where are the opportunities to make a difference (i.e., what action can I take)?
- If I could pick one way to make a difference here, what would it be?
I. Your work
Work is inherently about making a difference; something is different after you do the work than it was before. So if you’re going to make some kind of difference, it makes sense to explore the question, “What kind of difference do I want to make?”
The impact you make with your work might be direct (the specific outcome of the work that you do in your job) or indirect (working in a supporting role for a company that is making a difference that is important to you).
(See more about the power of making a personally meaningful difference in your work.)
II. Volunteering
Volunteering is like “Work Lite.” It gives you a chance to sink your teeth into something meaningful, without the full-on commitment that building a career takes. It also gives you a chance to dabble and discover, exploring various ways of getting involved to find out what you connect most with.
You can put existing skills to work or use the experience to gain new skills. You can go as deep or shallow with it as you want. The volunteering you do might take an official form with some organization, or it might be informal, like spending an afternoon on your own at the beach picking up litter.
III. Putting your money to work
Where you put your money can make a difference. Traditionally making a difference with your money meant make charitable donations, but these days it can also mean putting your money to work through socially responsible investing, or making small microcredit loans through an organization like Kiva.
IV. Everyday life choices
Every day as you go about your life, you leave a footprint on the world. The choices you make about how to live your life might leave positive footprints, or negative ones. Rather than traipsing along without much thought to the effect you’re having on the world around you, try incorporating it into your personal meaning plan.
What impact are the choices you make having on the environment? What impact are they having on your health and the health of others? What impact are they having on the local economy? Are you making life easier or harder for people? Are you contributing to a strong, positive community, or getting in the way? Are the businesses you support with the money you spend taking a sustainable approach?
V. Interactions
Every point of interaction in your life carries with it the potential to make a positive impact. From the fleeting and surface-level interaction (e.g., a friendly acknowledgment of a homeless person you encounter on the street) to the long-term, deep and meaningful (e.g., the way you bring up your kids and the beliefs you instill), you can make your world a better place by being conscious about what you want to bring to those interactions.
What seeds do you want to plant? How do you want people to come away feeling? What belief about the world do you want to reinforce? What actions do you want to encourage?
VI. Energy and intentions
From my personal experience, my observation of others, and my reading, things like energy (chi, prana), intentions, prayer, etc. can have a powerful affect on the world around you. I won’t pretend to be able to tell you “this is how things are,” so I’ll leave it up to you to determine if this one fits with your world view. If it does, it’s worth exploring in the context of the difference you want to make.
VII. How you live your life
The first six ways to make a difference all have some element of proactiveness about them. You can say, "This is what I'm going to choose to do, with this kind of end result." This last one is really more just throwing the seeds up into the wind.
How you live your life might have an impact on somebody else's life. Thirty years from now your kid might tell a friend about a positive experience from their childhood that proves to be exactly the perspective that friend needs to help them show up in a more positive way for their kids. Or someone you work with might see the integrity of how you show up in the workplace and decide to model that.
Who you are and how you choose to show up can is the invisible ripple generator. And even if you never know about them, those ripples are still creating positive change.
Try this: Spend some time exploring each of the categories listed here. Maybe you journal about them. Maybe you talk about them with a friend or group of friends. Or maybe you just mull them over as you drive back and forth to work.
If you want to take it a step further, summarize what you learn. For each category, describe:
- What kind of difference feels especially energizing/compelling to you?
- How are you currently making a difference?
- What are some easy opportunities you see to make a difference?
- What are some more involved opportunities you want to move towards (e.g., career change)?
In the end, it all boils down to awareness and action. A Personal Meaning Plan is a great step on the road to both.
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