This week we are continuing to celebrate the one year anniversary of our book, Splash!: Increase Your Life’s Impact. As a part of the celebration, we have released our book as a Kindle eBook as has been requested for a while. You can find the eBook here. Today I am highlighting another mindset from our book called, Calling Mentality.
I have noticed that a lot of people are involved in some kind of charity work. The phrase I hear a lot is “giving back.” The mindset that is implied by this phrase is something like, “I live for myself most of the time, and to balance this out, I occasionally give back.” However you want to interpret this, the main thing is that people are giving their time and/or money here and there for whatever reason – because it makes them feel good, it feels like the right thing to do, or it’s like giving penance for the other areas of their life.
Calling Mentality is different than this “giving back” mindset in one primary way. With Calling Mentality, our contribution to society is the main thing our whole life is all about. It’s not something we do on the side, or do in a random fashion, shotgun style.
Our book states it this way:
Old thinking: “I just need to serve somewhere.”
New thinking: “I use my strengths and passions to serve effectively.”
Many of us have helped out various charities, but our efforts may have been unfocused and, therefore, the results we got may have been very limited. A calling, determined by our unique combination of strengths and passions, is much more focused than doing some volunteer work here and there. This focus is one of the main reasons living our calling is far more effective at bringing about long-lasting change in the lives of other people.
Just like Mother Teresa was all about rescuing orphans, you can be known for the one main thing you pour your life into. If you want to make your life matter, you will be much more effective by impacting your world in one primary area, as opposed to being involved in 5, 10, or 20 different things.
By the way, your calling doesn’t have to look a certain way. Your calling doesn’t have to be a charity of any kind. It’s perfectly valid to impact the world and get paid doing it. Your calling doesn’t have to mean you’re famous. And it doesn’t mean you have to speak in public, be poor, get shot, or do something heroic.
It’s your calling. What do you want to be known for?
