Be sure to align your giving and contribution with your personal growth as well.
Make sure that your giving continues to give you a sense of growth and improvement. Don’t let your contribution outlets become stagnant. Keep raising the challenge level. For instance, I went from writing about 5 articles per year before I started blogging to averaging about 100 articles per year since then. I went from doing 7-minute speeches in 2004 to doing 3-day workshops in 2009. If you keep raising the challenge level to keep pace with your growth, it’s less likely that you’ll feel bored or checked out.
Keep raising the bar for your contributions. Seek to become increasingly helpful by helping people in deeper ways, by helping more people, or both. Look for opportunities to increase the depth and breadth of your contribution. Don’t rest on your laurels.
The more ambitious you become about contribution, the more like-minded people you’ll attract who can encourage and support you in taking the next steps.
This will help you advance further beyond the limitations of social drag. You’ll meet people who strongly resonate with what you’re doing and want to see you succeed.
When you see your social support drying up – which may happen from time to time – that’s a good indication that it’s time to raise the bar on your service. Maybe you need to raise your standards for contribution by tackling something more ambitious and exciting, or maybe you need to shift the type of service you provide altogether to find that sweet spot of meaning and purpose again.