How often have you heard “I want to make a difference in the world”. In the world of NGOs and Charities I hear this a lot.
It appears to be a hidden driver in many of us. You will know this driver if you’ve heard yourself saying - I don’t want to waste my time, I want to do something with my life, I want my life to have a purpose, meaning, I want to leave a legacy.
No one can knock the desire to make a difference; it inspires us to keep going when things look hopeless, have dreams, believe in the unthinkable.
At the same time, I believe that it is a double edge sword. In fact, in certain circumstances, this obsessive need to make a difference can not only undermine our lives but also do more harm than good.
When we pursue a life of wanting to make a difference, we fall into a certain way of seeing ourselves and the world. We see our timeframe for doing something as a 100 years (or shorter), and this leads to incredible busy-ness, short-term thinking, instant results and the need for measurable outcomes.
In my coaching clients, this leads to putting their cause before themselves; working unsustainable hours and being permanently overwhelmed - partly because making a difference is often linked with overwhelming scale and size. And never enough-ness.
So what I want to share is a moment of insight that came up in a conversation. What if we were to change the emphasis of “making a difference in the world” ie the focus on making stuff happen out there to “making your difference in the world” ie the focus on putting everything that you are into the world.
The idea here is to recognize, celebrate and live everything that you are on a daily basis - your humor, values, habits; personal loves, of people, nature, technology; your unique passion for words, color, sound; your quirky ideas for business, philanthropy, innovation.
The invitation is to live in the knowledge that if you are putting all of your uniqueness into the world - you are making a difference. This requires belief - because the likelihood is you will never know. Just as Barack Obama’s grandparents probably never guessed that their uniqueness would produce the 44th President of United States.
So how do you make your difference in the world?
Something Practical
The annoyingly pithy answer was inscribed inside the Temple of Apollo at Delphi - “know thyself”. Or as I like to read it “know what thy care about”.
“Know what thy care about” is the foundation of making your difference in the world. The next stage is to make promises around your cares as these are the powerful declarations that make things happen, make them real.
If you want to explore this on a practical level, have a look at the following process*:
* What do you care about - write down what you live for, what you love, what makes life worth living.
* What is your overall promise - describe the outcome (2 yrs max) of the future you will produce by taking care of what you care about
* What are your specific promises - describe what you promise in the specific areas that flow out of your overall promise.
Something New
Now, the Delphic proverb might equally have said, “Sign up for a Because It’s There Coaching Program”.
Given that at the heart of our coaching programs is self awareness. With self awareness or new insight, there is new choices and with new choices, new actions.
Next year, we are running an open coaching program starting in January 2013 - Time for Change. This is an opportunity to grow, develop, expand, see things in new ways and most importantly get right to the heart of what matters to you.
The program is a parallel process of two things: 1. one-to-one coaching sessions (12 in total) and 2. a learning experience - you will need to train and prepare for a 4-day bike tour of Mt Blanc in June. This six-month engagement costs £3100 including VAT.
If you would like more information, please feel free to contact me at energy@becauseitsthere.net or visit our website at www.becauseitsthere.net
By for now and make sure you take care - of what matters to you.
Materials from Newfield Network and The institute of Generative Leadership
