This post is about how to make a positive impact on the world. How exciting that every person who has clicked on this article has done so because they want to impact and positively change the world. Humans are amazing. And humans have a serious power to influence, even those who feel most small and most insignificant.
This post talks about your powers as a citizen and how you can use them to positively impact the world. We will answer the questions:
- What power do I have, as an individual, to make a positive impact on the world?
- And, how can I use that power to make the biggest change?
What power do I have as an individual to make an impact?
Every human has three main powers. These powers are time, money and energy. The combination of the three of these, for better or worse, underpins the impact we have on the world.
Time is what most people feel most short of, but your time is the biggest gift to the planet. Because we’ll feel so time-short, we need to find the biggest impact we can have with the time available. How can we use the time we have in the most impactful way.
Many people preoccupy themselves with taking a long time sorting the tiniest bit of recycling into the correct bins.
How to impact the world with your energy
The most important power we have is our energy. Our energy and mindset radiates off us, speaks to others around us, and channels inspiration and motivation. Think how different the world would look if every person had a peaceful aura; If their energy was poured into kindness to others, not frustration and stress and energy-sucking gossip.
Look at the sketch of our power to impact change. Energy is at the core- it’s the most powerful, but it’s also the most profound change of the three. The biggest and deepest impact you can have is shifting your energy. This is a long, sustained process. The lightest, quickest way you can have a big impact is money. The space between the two that links the two together in many ways is time. You can use your time to have a profound impact, but it sits between energy and money in depth. It’s important, but it’s less sustained and transformative than energy work.
With the right energy, the time to act and the options of what you can do with your money will simply flow. Or, you can work on all three in parallel, while understanding how they complement and balance each other. When you think of how to make a positive impact in the world, you can also start small and add slowly, step by step.
How does energy make change?
Ok but how does energy actually make change? It’s an essential pre-requisite. Also it will allow us to make space in the money and time departments for change.
How do you change your energy? This is very personal to you, but there are a lot of techniques to help. What are the biggest stresses in your life? What are your biggest frustrations? Then think, what are your most peaceful moments? When do you have the most laugh and feel the most carefree? I think a good place to start is with an intense mediation practice. For example, 20 minutes a day with 10 minutes of yoga stretches before. And 5 minutes after to readjust and feel the changes. You can adopt these habits for some time and give yourself space to see if you can understand, for yourself, what power strong energy can hold.
Then there’s being emotionally wise and knowing what triggers you and how you react to situations. The first step in handling this is to observe it for a while. Journal. Before bed, each night, or in the morning with a coffee before your day starts, take two pages of a journal and think about your emotional responses to things in your life and the people around you. Then when you come across those triggers in real life- be aware of how you are reacting.
Once you have more oversight of how you respond to situations emotionally, think about how you can positively impact the energy of people around you that you care for. It doesn’t have to be people you know, just people in your life. Usually, you can influence energy by watching, being thoughtful, appreciating other people’s work or time and making sure they know it. It’s making others feel special and making them feel as though they belong.
How to impact the world with your time
Your time is so powerful. It is such a gift if you can give it. Sometimes you can do one-off things, and sometimes there are standing commitments for which you can put yourself forward.
The biggest commitments and biggest potential impact are using your time to protest! The best way to do this is to join a movement you agree with and get involved in organising/creating, and attending. Joining activities are the best way to do this as they will have strategies for how they have the most significant impact and you will never be short of places to get involved and act. Try Extinction Rebellion for climate-related actions/forestry movements/ocean clean up movements. Big organisation like these can be great because you can choose where you’re best suited- an introvert might prefer to do behind the scenes organizing rather than being out on the information stalls talking to people. They also have great senses of community and are positive effects for energy.
What if you want to have a positive impact on the world, but have no time?
We are all time-short, so you might want to think about the time multiplier effect. What is that? Can you use the time you have to set something up to make time action easier for other people? I’ll show you an example. My mum began regular donations to a food bank during the pandemic. She knew she was driving over to the drop off every Sunday anyway. So, for just a bit more time, she emailed the street to say, “please drop off donations on our doorstep every Sunday morning, and I will drive it over to the food bank”. She used her time and simultaneously multiplied the effect of her time because she took donations from the whole street.
If you’re in an office and you go through the process of ringing up and changing your pension to an ethical or environmental fund. Spend a little more (multiplier) time and send an email around to colleagues to explain exactly what to do, who to speak to, and which fund you requested. It’s only a bit more of your time, but there is a multiplier effect. Colleagues wouldn’t have even thought about it without your email, but even if just three colleagues follow through, that’s a lot of money you’ve re-directed! If your provider doesn’t offer what you want, draft a letter and send it to colleagues who might also want to write and complain. It makes it so easy for them, but you’re multiplying the effect for little extra work.
Another good way to think of it is to use your time to be of more value than others. If there is a cause you want to support, you can spend your money on it, which is great. But if you approach it from a time perspective- maybe you instead organise a very low key event to raise money. Buy pancakes or doughnuts with £10 of your own money and send a link inviting everyone in your office to coffee and asking them to donate to the cause for a doughnut. You’ll get more than £10 out of it. Or not just the office, bring healthy snacks to a yoga class and ask for donations. Send a funny Friday email to a network of your friends with stories about your life/silly jokes off the internet, things you think they’d like and ask for donations.
Time on reducing waste? Give away or re-sell for cheap things you no longer need to prevent consumption and make second-hand easier. Offer up the appliances you own for use by your neighbours…for example, hedge trimmers, waffle makers, fondue sets. Bit more of a hassle, but it makes a big difference. If you own a car, offer the use of it to someone without one. Also, see if there are any appliance rent sites in your area, such as ‘fatllama‘ in London.
It’s not about how much time you have, but taking a moment to think about what time investment can have the biggest knock on effects.
How to impact the world with your money
What if you want to have a positive impact on the world, but have no money?
Think about your money and how you can use it to impact the world. The biggest impact will come from your most giant pot of money, which will likely be your pension. Change your pension to be invested in environmentally friendly funds rather than the default options of your pension provider—link to a site with more info.
The next best way with the most significant impact is to donate a percentage of your salary to good causes. Either save it to a separate account (if you’re disciplined) and spend it on money in the community. Or set up regular donations. The key here is you can decide what you want to give a month right now and work that out as a percentage of your salary…then keep donating the right percentage rather than the same amount. The amount will grow with your income over your lifetime. Because it’s a percentage, though, you won’t ever feel the pinch. The amount will only increase when your take-home pay increases- you’ll be happy anyway! There is a movement called effective altruism. They can support you in an ethical fund to invest in or assess the best charities to donate to.
Money can also be spent on your community for energy, goodwill and cross motivation. If you have the means, be generous. Use it to boost the energy of people close to you. Whatever that means for you.
However, one of the most impactful everyday things is to reduce consumption, buy less and buy better, lasting quality. The world has so much waste.
Conclusions: How to make a positive impact on the world?
In this post, we introduced the three core powers we all have as individuals in impact the world. The easiest and quickest is through donating money. Then, going a bit deeper, you have a lot of power in how you use your time. The most effective way is to use your time for multiplier effects. The core way to change the world is the impact you create through your energy, the energy to hold yourself and not to drain on the other. The energy to think, act, inspire and encourage and support those around you- level them up with you, so everyone can flourish.
Hope you enjoyed this post about how to positively impact the world with your time, money and energy.
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