So often people have that gnawing feeling they want more, but they don’t know what to do or where to start in order to get it. A couple years back, I went to an Oprah Live Event and had the opportunity to hear one of the featured speakers Martha Beck. She was normalizing with the audience that desire to have an impact on the world, or to have a better more fulfilling life, but not having a clue how to do it. I’ve used this strategy I’m about ready to mention with some that I’ve worked with to help shift the focus when finding your “life purpose” seems like an overwhelming daunting task. We’re all in the same boat there, where I personally don’t believe any of us should be seeking our “life purpose” as that is constantly evolving and changing and quite frankly may not be for us to know. However, each one of us can live on purpose and do something about things that matter to us.

As Martha continued her talk, she suggested to the audience to google various ideas and concepts together as a way to brainstorm. For example, she said google something you like to do or that you’re good at with something you want to change in the world and see what comes up. Now, in all honesty, I did this exercise and it didn’t yield me a ton of results, however, it may be different for you with your various passions talents and abilities, and how long you’re willing to google I suppose. But what it did do for me was inspire me to think more about how to incorporate my talents with what I’m passionate about and as a way to participate in the change I want to see in the world. Simply stated, it helped me take the focus off of me and onto what I care about. Big paradigm shift for me when struggling with not feeling worthy, good enough, or smart enough to create a business. Whoever might be struggling with those same thoughts and feelings would probably be more able to embrace their desire to participate in social change through business. It takes the scariness of business down a notch or two for most people.

This could go in many different directions and as you can imagine the options are limitless. So rather than getting stumped and stopping immediately when you’re considering what you’re good at and how in the world you could make money doing it, consider first, what you care about in the world and how can you use what God gave you to contribute to making that situation or issue better. Now selecting a cause or project of social change may be difficult as we know there are so many non profits out there vying for our money and time so which one do we choose? Well, the answer isn’t so simple for everyone and it may be where you want to spend a significant portion of your time doing some research.

Whether you’ve already got an established business or you are new in business you can learn from this paragraph, because as stated above we want our passion, mission vision to match up as much as possible, so if you’re a writer you may emphasize that you’re passionate about literacy. Or if you’re a fitness trainer you may be passionate about helping to make an impact on the childhood obesity epidemic. Not that a personal trainer can’t care about wildlife, but doesn’t it make her business platform so much stronger and compel you to want to hire her as a personal trainer because she is also helping to combat child obesity. Already you feel like you too are part of something bigger and more important than just buying that product or service for yourself. Start thinking big because you too can contribute to social change no matter where you’re at on your journey.

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