Giving life purpose. I recently had a discussion with my boyfriend about the purpose of life. What do you do when you don’t know what your purpose is? How do you find it? My simplest answer is to CREATE your purpose through GIVING. Think about what you would ENJOY giving, don’t think of something because it’s noble or because it impacts thousands of people. These goals are fine, but any objective should start small. otherwise you might not start at all. Simply making a difference in one person’s life is enough. Giving doesn’t necessarily equate to money. Actually, money is always appreciated in charities, but to me, the gift of time is even better. And it doesn’t have to be charities either. This blog is an example of giving. I share my thoughts and help people understand themselves better to alleviate challenges they might be facing in their lives.
So you see, it doesn’t have to be complicated. All you have to do is start with something that you love doing and that you genuinely want to share. Remember that every organization started small. I remember Tony Robbins talking about delivering Thanksgiving dinners. One year, his family couldn’t celebrate thanksgiving because they couldn’t afford a turkey. A charitable organization offered them a meal and they were finally able to celebrate. The following year, he decided to return the favour and offered a meal to another family. The year after, he offered a meal to two families. The following year, four. And that number has grown exponentially since. He now serves millions of meals on thanksgiving through is organization. But as you can see, he started with only one! You never know how far it can go, but all you need to do is to start.
I also watched a TED video, which I unfortunately cannot find anymore, that was about a study on the effects of giving. They gave random people envelopes containing $5, $10 or $20 with instructions to spend it before 5 pm the same day. Half the people were instructed to spend it on themselves, the other half had to spend it on someone else. As you can guess, the portion who had to spend the money on someone else saw a noticeable increase in their happiness, while the group who spent the money on themselves didn’t see a difference in their happiness level. The experiment was tried in several countries in the world and with different social classes and always resulted in the same conclusions.
The last thing to keep in mind is that your goal can change along the way. You don’t need to find THE perfect answer in order to start. Start giving now, go for the first idea that comes to your mind, and your project will evolve along the way. As we were told countless times at the Millionaire Mind seminar, it’s not the amount that matters, it’s the habit!
Let me know what you want to start giving!
Martin
Shine Brighter Now 