Personal growth is a story that affects everyone’s lives. While earning money and status are often used to measure an individual’s output, one’s level of self-confidence and skills can be raised through both community service and travel. The combination of these two activities can result in valuable experience for a future career and sense of accomplishment.
Community Service Builds Character
Volunteer work is the heart of community service, which comes in many forms. Instead of just being completely focused on one career goal, you can develop personal growth by including volunteer work as part of your education that leads to a bigger picture than just a good-paying job. While a job is rewarding and pays the bills, you will feel a greater sense of achievement if you’re not just working for yourself. Contributing to society can be equally as rewarding, especially when you know you are improving people’s lives.
The key to enjoying volunteer work is to put yourself in situations in which you know you can make a difference. As a coach, you can teach younger students areas in which you’ve already studied deeply. Volunteer work can also involve helping set up booths at school fairs and assisting handicapped people. Some students do this work to gain credit toward their degrees while others simply want to expand their horizons.
Learning about your community opens your mind to serious issues and leadership opportunities. It will help you develop problem-solving skills and how to communicate with different levels of authority. It can help you learn how to fit in with an organization and how to initiate change. When you learn to be a team leader and work with others, it can create career opportunities you may not have even envisioned. These skills give an individual a sense that they can make a difference in the world. It’s a much broader perspective than the one in which a person only pursues narrow interests that generate instant gratification.
An essential benefit to participating in community service is that it gives you a chance to evaluate your personal strengths and weaknesses. Some people are great speakers in groups but shy as individuals. You may feel awkward in certain roles, which can teach you to either adapt or find other ways to help your community. Personal growth comes from exploring, identifying and learning. By getting involved with group activities you can identify areas in which you need to make improvements in communication and carrying out assignments.
Travel Provides Rich Experiences
One of the most powerful ways to expand your knowledge of the world is to travel beyond your region. As Daniel Vera mentioned in a 2012 TED talk, travelling can provide an individual with more lessons than they expect. A life-changing adventure opens the door to encountering new ideas and people that teach alternative ways to do things from business to leisure. One of the key building blocks to developing an appreciation for different cultures is to accept that the world is a lot bigger than one’s own lifestyle.
Travel helps shape perceptions of a more productive and caring world, that a lot more activity is going on than what people see in their own neighborhoods or on television. The more people learn that different regions have different customs and processes, the more they develop a world view that encompasses various cultural differences. If a person doesn’t seek knowledge beyond their own circle of family and friends, they may be set in their ways that limit opportunities.
The problem that prevents many people from travelling is that it costs money to pay for accommodations and basic cost of living expenses. But what many people don’t realize is that you can earn money while traveling, especially if you have diverse computer skills. There are plenty of online jobs for programmers, designers, writers and virtual assistants. You may also be able pay for expenses by doing odd jobs that you find on classified sites.
You can maximize your journey by taking lots of photos and videos of your adventures, which may be worth something to filmmakers and travel researchers. It will certainly help you put together a portfolio of your adventures so that the memories will be preserved.
Conclusion
Taking an interest in your local community as well as travelling to other cities gives you a broad background. You will learn about the differences between people in different geographic locations as well as develop a concern for helping others in general. This combination of these experiences helps shape an interesting personality with the ability to share useful knowledge that empowers others. Helping others promotes a strong sense of self-esteem.