Friday Four: Four Tips to Help You Identify Needs Around You

Friday, February 8, 2008

If you are in the process of developing your vision of life and career objectives, nothing makes you more important and relevant than building your career around filling in a particular need around you.

Like Thomas Edison, a person whose vision in life is to identify the needs of society and come up with ways to meet those needs, will be of utmost importance to the society around him. Persons whose career building goals revolve around becoming effective agents of change are fulfilled in many ways.

If you are interested in building your career around becoming a social entrepreneur, someone whose vision in life ultimately is to make a difference in the world around him, here are four tips to help you identify needs around you.

1. Follow your passion. What do you enjoy doing? If your vision in life and career opportunities are centered on something that you enjoy, the odds are great that you will end up being immensely satisfied if you practice what you enjoy, and do that for a living.

2. Look around your neighborhood for opportunities. If you are not the type whose career building desires involve around a 45-minute trek to the city so you can time-in and time-out as some corporate-type individual, you can find a lot of opportunities in your immediate neighborhood. For instance, if you like children, you may want to craft a vision in life that involves taking care of the next generation and preparing them for greatness.

3. Meet with like-minded individuals – and seek out naysayers. When developing your vision in life and mapping out your career goals, you need both cheerleaders and cautious Charlies. Cheerleaders are people who can encourage you and provide both inspiration and practical advice to help you on your way. Cautious Charlies are people who are a little more grounded, those who can see both sides of the coin and help you fine-tune your vision.

4. Do not tune out the media just yet. There are many opportunities being written about everyday. Whether you are online or reading a newspaper or magazine or watching television, the story of someone with a successful vision can often inspire you and jump start your vision-making.

Remember: you have the unique opportunity to become a true world-changer. Find what needs changing and get started!

My book Bring Your Vision to Life, contains a wider range of content designed specifically to help you identify needs and help you streamline tune your vision for a fulfilling, lifelong career of social entrepreneurship. For more details, click here. | 0 comments

February 2008