Helping other people is very healthy, but how do you get started and why is it so good for you? Volunteering is a direct way to help other people, even people who are total strangers to you. Volunteering has all kinds of benefits, it is the ultimate win-win situation. In this blog, you will read why.
Do you ever feel like your life has no purpose? Do you ever feel like you can't do anything? Then volunteering can change that.
Benefits of volunteering
In fact, volunteering has all kinds of benefits. You are helping someone else so they will definitely benefit. In addition, there are many benefits for yourself.
Self Development
By volunteering, you develop your own talents. It doesn't even matter so much what kind of volunteering you do. The work is something you learn from, even if it's just how to put together food packages as quickly as possible.
In the process, you'll also learn more on an emotional level. In fact, helping other people, in whatever way you can, is incredibly good for your self-esteem. You get more of an idea that you are useful and that you can do something that other people need.
Feeling needed is a feeling that makes you incredibly happy and confident.
In the process, this can also strengthen the bonds you have with people in the area of volunteering. Very useful if you can do something for other people in your own village or town. It is therefore also a useful tool against loneliness.
You'll also learn more about gratitude, patience and kindness. In this hurried world, sometimes there is no time for this, but if you volunteer, you will initially experience gratitude from the people you help. At some point you just become grateful that you can help them.
Patience is also a fine thing, but something that is no longer really of our time. Something the elderly and less able-bodied sometimes find very annoying. Have you ever had a conversation with someone aged 90+? They often talk a little slower, but the stories they have to tell are well worth the patience and you often learn something.
Friendliness is also incredibly important. If you volunteer, you will find that you are much less strict with the people you help than you are with yourself. As a result, you may learn that you too can be a little kinder to yourself. You may have self-compassion.
Broader view of other people
Especially when you volunteer for people, you come into contact with all kinds of people. As a result, you gain more insight into other people around you.
You learn from their stories, and you also learn as a result that you should not be too quick to judge.
This can help you tremendously in the rest of your life, because it also lets you know that not everyone always acts a certain way towards you because of how you are, but because of problems they themselves are facing.
Special experiences
Volunteering can also give you special experiences. Almost everyone knows the stories of people who now go to children's orphanages abroad to care for the children. Almost everyone then comes back with the stories of experiences they had in that country.
You can also see it closer to home. Helping people with disabilities, intellectual or physical, can also give you incredibly beautiful moments. You may only be 1 person in the world, but for the person you help, you can be the world just like that.
Prevent your volunteer work from being misused
Okay those stories of people who went abroad to volunteer for an orphanage? Unfortunately, recent evidence has shown that many of those children are not even orphans and that they purposely make the building the children live in look shabby so that you only give a lot of money and want to invest in your volunteer work.
One of the best ways to avoid being taken advantage of for volunteering is if you don't have to pay anything for it. The organization really only wants you to volunteer and not your money. Then you can be sure that you are volunteering what is necessary.
Going abroad and need to pay rent? Then check the rents charged there and whether the price/quality ratio is a bit right.
Getting guts to volunteer
Okay, so volunteering is very good for your emotional and personal development. What if you want to, but don't dare? Trying something new that you haven't done before, such as volunteering, can be very exciting and sometimes uncertainty about your abilities can get in the way.
That's why I have some tips for you to get more courage for volunteering.
Tip 1: Make a list
Make a list of things you enjoy doing. This is not just about typical work such as ironing, but of course that is allowed. It also involves, for example, making music or drama. For example, if you want to be a Clini Clown, it's helpful if you like acting.
If you've made a list of things you enjoy doing, you can put them in order from most enjoyable to least enjoyable. With these talents in mind, you can then start looking for volunteer opportunities where you can do them.
Tip 2: Visualize
Visualize being engaged in volunteer work. Do you feel you cannot do the volunteer work you really want to do? Then visualize yourself doing it and everything you do is going well. By stimulating this imagination you will make yourself more convinced that you can do the work.
The step to actually start volunteering then becomes much easier.
Tip 3: Why don't you dare?
Ask yourself, possibly with a close friend, why don't you dare volunteer even though you want to? By asking the why question several times you will get to the beliefs that keep you from volunteering.
Next, you can check for yourself whether this is a logical belief or not. Do you think it is a logical belief? Then ask your friend if they agree whether or not it is logical.
For example, you may think that volunteering is only something for people at the bottom of society and doesn't fit your "cool/stylish" image. This, of course, makes no sense at all if you secretly just want to volunteer.
Tip 4: Encourage yourself
Sometimes a little encouragement is all it takes, and self-hypnosis does that very well. Once you know which belief is so illogical you can change the belief with hypnotic suggestions. A hypnotherapist can help you figure out those beliefs and what suggestions are best to use.
These may include:
"Volunteering is good for everyone."
"Princess Diana also volunteered."
"I'm good enough to volunteer."
Tip 5: Sniffer internship
In high school, students can often do a taster internship at a company that has the profession of what they "want to become later." This is to check if this job is really as nice as it seems and if it is worth the study they need. Such an internship often lasts only 1 or 2 days.
Also, as a volunteer, you often get to spend 1 day with a volunteer organization to see if this type of work suits you. It is a very non-committal way to find out if you like the work.
On that day, you can also find out that the work is not that difficult at all and thus gain more confidence that you are needed and wanted.
So there are all kinds of ways to start volunteering, and it has all kinds of benefits, too. Even Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War II said:
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."- Winston Churchill
You can roughly translate this to "We live by what we earn, but we are really going to live by what we get."
Want to learn more about mental techniques for finding happiness and increased self-confidence? Then come to a playshop or read the book Break Free!
