6 Easy Ways to Make a Positive Impact on Someone’s Life
It is has been my observation over the years that helping other people is a basic human desire. Especially if they want to change their habits or life direction and your experience can be of benefit to them. How do you help change their life?
You start by making a positive impact on them. Whether you’re looking to mentor someone in their career, teach a friend a new skill, or look for another way to offer guidance to someone else, the outcome you desire is always the same. You want them to succeed.
Are you ready to be the teacher they need?
I want to share some tips that have helped me help others over the past several decades.
Figure Out the Relationship You Want to Have
First, what kind of relationship are you looking to have?
- Do you want to be a teacher in a classroom?
That would entail some solid planning and of course the investment in the proper education to facilitate that goal. - Do you want to come alongside a friend and help them out once in a while?
This situation occurs more often and is easier to put in place. - Do you want to be a formal mentor, possibly in a business setting?
This scenario has grown leaps and bounds recently with the explosion of the internet, social media, and visual communication systems such as Zoom and other electronic meeting rooms.
Define the Goal
Once you’ve established your setting and gained a student or a set of students, you must create a clear objective. What is the purpose of this teaching relationship? What do you want the other person to get out of it? What do they want to get out of it?
This requires asking a lot of questions and Listening Actively to the person or persons seeking the help.
Go All In
Don’t go into this unless you’re truly willing to invest in the individual. Be willing to operate with total Sincerity and not just because the relationship and effort may benefit you. Be sure to communicate and act with the knowledge and acceptance of their feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and desires in a manner that is honest and genuine.[ Become more interested in helping them succeed as a person than marking their achievements off some list.
Know When to Stop
You’ll find the best outcomes in giving guidance to others when you know what they truly need. To find this out, you might need to lay aside your agenda and LISTEN to them for a while. Download and read the Free Book >>>>>
Their initial problems might not be what they need to solve. It could be there’s something deeper going on. When you allow the other person room to talk, they will often come around to what’s bothering them if you give them enough time.
Drop Assumptions
Don’t think you know everything, especially about the person you’re mentoring. Rather than assuming anything, take the time to ask them about themselves. Discover what they want out of this relationship. It seems when building solid relationships in life, the old mantra of “ASKING” rules.
Be Vulnerable
We have all made mistakes too. Always be willing to share your catastrophes. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from other people’s mistakes. Your experiences are a valuable tool when it comes to guiding others on their journey of self-improvement
In the end, the best way to make a positive impact on someone’s life is to be open and honest in your desire to help and in how you treat the other person. Honesty is crucial to the mentoring relationship.
Share some of your experiences in helping others
or experiences of being helped by others.
One of my most memorable and rewarding experiences of helping others was when as Provincial Chairman of the Institute of Marketing Management in South Africa in the late 1980s, I organised a workshop for successful White and Asian business leaders to share their experiences with members of a group of Black entrepreneurs. A group which had, until then, found difficulty in getting formal, informal or experiential training.
It was not organised to score political points – I was certainly not liberal in my political outlook – it was done because it was the right thing to do and it offered a way to help enthusiastic but inexperienced people get ahead.
That initial event led to rewarding relationships and set many people on the road to success.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Peter.
I also thank you for writing your fabulous book on overcoming Adversity.
Very inspirational
5 Steps to Thriving on Adversity