All this talk about personal development. About self realization. Many respected authors or bloggers write for the sole purpose of creating a better life for yourself. However, positive thought alone, out of its social context is somewhat incomplete. Here’s a few tips to help you switch from a personal to a more social approach.

If you read my previous posts, you might have noticed I don’t write about things you don’t already know. I don’t expect you to go “Ooh!” and have sudden realizations about life and personal development. What I do is I gather thoughts that seem interesting to me and hope you find them interesting or helpful as well. With that in mind, I firmly believe that

Positive change in us leads to positive change around us

1. Watch Pay It Forward

For starters, watch this beautiful drama about a boy with pure altruistic intentions. It should set you in the right mood for action later.

2. Visit Kiva.org

The site is based on a simple idea of helping others by loaning money to the people who really need it. Here’s their mission statement (a very powerful one, indeed):

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva.org has an active community of lenders. The whole process is transparent so you can monitor exactly where your money goes, and you don’t have to be a millionaire to start participating in worldwide lending projects already today.

3. Do What You Do Best

There’s a great chance someone might find your skills really useful and helpful. If you’re reading this post – you probably know how to operate a computer and read English. Some people might need exactly that. And I know of certain grandfathers (no names, though) that still wait for their grand-kids to teach them the very basics of computer use. What do YOU do well that can be useful to others?

4. No Drama!

Your help is not life-changing. The relationships you build with other people and the help you offer them may sometimes seem insignificant or small in comparison to great deeds by famous people. But the more you help, and the more you embrace this pattern, you increase the amount of good you spread in the world. Remember:

5. Words of Support are Help, Too

Listening closely is more than nodding your head. Words of compassion, sympathy or advice might do the trick for the person that needs them most. Most of the long-lasting relationships in my life were based on this kind of basic, yet important trust and support.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Winston Churchil

And of course, you could help me a lot by commenting what you thought of this post, spreading the word on social networks and following me on twitter!