‘Living with purpose’ is a term you hear a lot at Team Indigo. Its one of our core values, its what we’re about and its what we try to do every single day. But what does it mean exactly?
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to quit your job and become a full-time volunteer to be living with purpose. If you can do that, that’s amazing and we think you’re wonderful. But let’s face it, not many people are in a position to dedicate 100 per cent of their time to volunteering. So does that mean everybody with nine-to-five jobs is not living with purpose? Absolutely not.
In our opinion, living with purpose means taking the spirit of volunteering into your day to day life.
That could be buying a coffee for the person in line behind you at your local cafe. It could be helping someone carry their groceries out of the supermarket. It could be giving a smile and ‘how are you today?’ to a colleague in your office. It could dedicating one hour per week to helping a charity or cause in your area. Or it could be taking a few weeks of annual leave each year to volunteer somewhere in the world that truly needs help.
Whichever way you choose to live with purpose doesn’t really matter – its the fact that you’re choosing to do something that not only lights you up on the inside, but also helps somebody else. By giving another person a kind gesture or a helping hand, you’re spreading goodwill. You’re putting a smile on their face and making their day that little bit better.
And guess what happens when you make somebody’s day? (You probably already know, but we’ll go ahead and spell it out anyway.) You give them a big old dose of the warm and fuzzies, and they in turn want to do the same. They will then pass on that good deed to somebody else, causing a ripple effect of goodwill. A beautiful chain reaction of living with purpose, that will slowly but surely make the world a better place.
If you find a way to do this that not only helps someone else, but also lights you up at the same time, that’s when you are truly living with purpose. If you love gardening, you might help a local community garden plant herbs and vegetables. If cooking is your passion, lending a hand at your local soup kitchen could be your calling. Or if sports is your thing, you may start coaching a community sport team.
Obviously, we’d love everybody to volunteer at some stage in their lives – we are a volunteering organisation, after all. But you don’t have to stop living your daily life to embody what it means to volunteer. You can keep living your life and still live with purpose.
So, let’s do that, shall we? Together, let’s live with purpose.