Deciding to leave a positive mark on the world is a noble goal. One of the most effective ways to find happiness, satisfaction, a sense of purpose and belonging is to try to improve the lives of others. However, this milestone can overwhelm you: How can you, one person, change the lives of others for the better? Thinking about this question can make you feel insignificant and helpless, but in this article you will find concrete advice on how to start influencing others in a positive way.
Steps
Method 1 of 3: Begin with Yourself
Step 1. Find happiness
To make others happy, you have to start with yourself. What puts you in a good mood? What gives you joy? Answer these questions to begin understanding how to spread happiness to others.
- Write a list of times when you have felt happiest. To help you remember you can browse a photo album. Pay attention to the images in which you seem happier or more peaceful: what did you do? Who were you with?
- Can you still find time for those activities? If not, try to prioritize the things that really make you feel happy.
- For example, even if you no longer have the time to go running in nature for hours every weekend as you did before, you may be able to jog to the local park once or twice a week. You will be surprised at how quickly your good mood will return after taking up an activity you loved very much.
Step 2. Get your life in order
It's hard to help others effectively if your life is a mess. If you really want to make a positive impact on the world, you will get better results if you are not too distracted by your personal problems.
- Would you like to help the unemployed find decent jobs with insured pay? If you can't keep a steady job first, you won't be able to offer much advice and you certainly won't be taken seriously.
- However, you shouldn't abandon your goal because you haven't been able to keep a high-paying job for a long time yet. When you succeed, you will be in an excellent position to help others like you.
- Once you overcome the obstacles in your path, you will be able to truly understand the situation other people are in and offer them valid and proven advice.
Step 3. Try to improve your life, not make it perfect
Even if the first step to helping others is to help yourself, be careful not to put off the start of your journey for too long. You will never get to be completely happy, content, with the perfect job, etc.
- If you wait for the moment to be perfect (and for your life to be) before you start making your mark on the world, you will never begin.
- You may not be in a position to be an employment consultant, but you could provide homeless people with clothes to interview for a job.
Method 2 of 3: Complete a Self-Assessment
Step 1. Identify your skills and talents
If you are trying to understand how you can make a positive impact in the world, you should get to know yourself as well as possible. Otherwise you will not be able to answer the question "What do you do best?".
- For example, are you a person who organizes everything down to the smallest detail? Do you have a natural talent for public speaking? Are you very good at reading and writing? Can you program? Are you a football star?
- Keep an open mind when answering these questions and don't rule out anything that seems silly or frivolous.
- For example, you may be very good at creating complicated designs with nail polish and consider it a useless hobby. However, nursing and retirement homes often seek out volunteers willing to manicure residents.
Step 2. Think about how you work best
Just as you should know what your talent is, you should also consider what kind of environment you express yourself best in. Answer the following questions to understand where and how to help others:
Do you feel more comfortable outdoors? Do you avoid bad weather at all costs and therefore prefer an office job? Are you an introverted person and therefore prefer to work from home?
Step 3. Be honest about what you really like
In addition to knowing what your talent is, you also need to evaluate whether you enjoy doing the activities you are good at. To be able to help others consistently, you need to avoid boredom and exhaustion. To protect yourself from these problems, dedicate yourself to something you enjoy and excel at.
For example, you might be a great writer and use this ability to help others. However, if you hate writing, the odds that you will be able to keep the commitment of teaching others to write are very low. Undoubtedly there are other things that you do well and that you like more
Step 4. Identify the causes that are important to you
Once your plan begins to take shape, you should think about what your passions are.
- What causes are important to you? Are you a person who loves animals and would you rather interact with them than with people? Are you a staunch defender of women's rights? Do you passionately support the need for school reform?
- Try to identify the causes that warm your heart or make your blood boil. Either way, you will know that you have committed to something that matters a lot to you.
Step 5. Decide how much time to spend helping others
Consider all your current commitments (work, school, family, etc.), in order to identify the moments of free time that you can dedicate to volunteering or doing good deeds.
- Don't make too ambitious promises about the time you can devote to volunteering or working for others.
- For example, if you promise to partner with the local animal shelter for 15 hours a week, they will rely on you, but after a couple of weeks you may lose motivation. You need to give yourself some time to relax.
- However, you should prioritize helping others and setting that commitment on your calendar, as well as taking it as seriously as you do your job.
Method 3 of 3: Changing the World for the Better
Step 1. Find ways to help now
In the noble mission of making a positive impact on the world, it is easy to look so far ahead as to ignore the opportunities that present themselves at the moment. Think about how you can improve the lives of others today.
- You may be very busy and think you don't have time for anything, but you can still help with small gestures.
- For example, you can set your alarm clock a few minutes earlier than normal and remove the ice from your neighbor's car before you go to work.
- If you go to school, you can organize a study group before an important class assignment, or share your notes with a classmate who has been missing for a week from the flu.
Step 2. Think of small gestures that can help
Commit to doing good deeds every day. The best way to do this is to look for opportunities to spread joy and help others. Eg:
- Keep the door open for people, making sure you do it with a welcoming smile.
- Let someone who appears to be in a hurry pass in front of you when you are standing in line at the supermarket checkout.
- Buy a pack of diapers for the new parents who live in the house next to yours (even if you don't know them).
- Take a few minutes to cut out coupons from newspapers so that you can buy more food and give it to the poor.
- Ask the service staff (waiters, shop assistants, gas station attendants, etc.) honestly about how your day is going.
- Even if they are small gestures, they can have a big impact on others.
Step 3. Look to the future
He continues every day to find ways to change the lives of others for the better, however small they may be. However, don't forget about long-term goals as well.
- For example, do you want to one day become a philanthropist or work for a non-profit organization? Would you like to work for Doctors Without Borders? Do you want to make sure that all children have adequate (and not only) learning materials at school?
- Depending on your long-term goals, you may need to spend some of your time already today to develop and hone your skills, as well as acquire the required knowledge.
- This can mean that you will need to enroll in a particular course of study, get a job as an intern, or even change careers.
- As a result, you will have to spend less time volunteering in the present, but you will become a tool that can improve the world in the future.
Step 4. Consider your luck
Think about what you value in life, then find ways to spread that positivity to others.
- For example, do you have a career today that rewards you thanks to the excellent education you received as a child? If so, you can express your gratitude and help others by providing the young people with the books they need.
- Alternatively, you could offer free tutoring services for a couple of hours a week to children in the poorest areas of the city.
- The basic idea is to understand the luck or help you have received and find ways to pass it on to others.
