It’s typical to start a new year with grand plans for your life, with goals and dreams and visions of a better you just around the corner of the next month or four or ten.

Well, yes, aim to get better and to fill your life with more meaningful pursuits.

But such goal planning can get a bit self-indulgent.

“What do I want?”

“What can I get?”

“How can I be happier, better-looking, richer…?”

What if instead you asked, “What can I give this year?”

“How can I contribute and make a difference?”

“What do I have to offer the world that only I can offer?”

“What is a significant problem I can begin to help solve?”

These questions spark in me a more engaging level of curiosity and enthusiasm than the self-focused questions.

Imagine winning the ultra-mega-awesome lottery jackpot. It’s fun to dream of what you would buy and to envision how the financial freedom would change your life. (For me, I’ll take a couple of Teslas and one of everything from the Apple Store and a long trip to Hawaii.)

But it’s even more fun to imagine what good you could do for others and for your community and for the world with a sudden fortune at your disposal.

It’s in giving and serving and offering something useful to others that we truly get satisfaction and joy.

Where can your voice, your creativity make a difference? How can you be distinctly useful? How can you help awaken possibility in others this year?

By focusing on what you can give, you’re also more likely to end up getting something more meaningful in return.

Imagine looking back on the year 2016 and delighting in what you contributed rather than in what you acquired.

So, if you’re feeling stuck or lost or you’ve abandoned your resolutions already, consider crafting your days around what you can give. 

*I couldn’t find the source to credit for the lovely photo above. Thank you, anonymous photographer.