Want to Add Value For Your Audience? Face Your Biggest Challenges and Uplevel Your Life
I started thinking about this idea after writing an article about hiring a virtual assistant for the first time. One of my primary motivations for learning how to delegate was to be able to share it with my blog/newsletter readers (you!)
It got me thinking: the more I experiment, grow my skills, read interesting books, etc, the more value I provide here on my blog and newsletter. What if that becomes part of my motivation for what I do? For example, I’ve been wanting to publish a novel for close to a decade but haven’t pushed the goal over the finish line yet. If I want to be a person who can help others get published, then I first have to learn how to do that myself. If I want to be a person who can show others how to make incredible, independent, entrepreneurial income (without a team, investors, brick-and-mortar location, or software/tech), then I have to first learn how to do that myself.
Rising tides lift all ships
What if I dedicate my life to growing myself to the biggest version of myself in service of helping others do the same?
It would feel good to achieve those goals for myself, but it would be even more fun to show others the way. It feels good to be the one guiding, teaching, and showing the way. Recently a friend was looking for a way to land a byline in a magazine, and I showed her the platform I’ve been using (Studyhall). It feels good to share and help others.
I can work toward achieving my goals just for me, but I can also think of achieving these goals in service to the collective growth of everyone around me.
When my older sister, Nicole, had her first baby, I learned so much about caring for children. When she learned how to set up a budgeting system for her family (the YNAB system), it gave me a path forward for what kind of system we would use in our own family. I knew she would even be willing to open up her computer and show me everything.
The bigger your goal or challenge, the more value you can provide others when you solve it
There is immense value in everyone around us upleveling. I’ll give another example. Since going through a recent health problem, I’ve learned a lot about health and our medical system. If a friend or family member was ever in the same situation, I would send them everything I know in an instant. Plus, if I figure out how to heal myself, I plan to write a blog about how I did it. Maybe even a YouTube video. And potentially go on some health-oriented podcasts to spread the word. It’s one thing to solve a problem that is easily solvable like quick remedies for a head cold, but it’s another to solve an extremely challenging problem like my three-year-long respiratory illness that modern medicine cannot figure out.
There are millions of other people struggling with the same symptoms without clear answers. We’ve all just been told which medicines will mute our symptoms and we’re sent on our way. But what if I figured it out? What if I found the root cause, solved it, and eradicated the problem without needing ongoing pharmaceuticals with unknown long-term consequences? What if that helped another person do the same thing? I’m not just motivated to heal myself, I’m motivated to help others heal themselves. This is where our lives become much, much bigger than ourselves. And that’s where everything gets extra fulfilling.
If you’re learning and growing in this lifetime, you can be an expert on anything you’ve experienced, learned, and mastered. The more you experience and learn, the higher you go.
Reframing your unique life challenges as opportunities for you to provide value to others
Let’s bring back the health example again. I don’t want to listen to a podcast about health with a guest who has never experienced this kind of challenge or solved it. Similarly, if I’m listening to a podcast about being an entrepreneur, I’ll feel the most motivated by someone who went from the lowest low, perhaps living on the streets, and then built a successful business. The harder the challenge you’ve overcome, the more reward there is at the end of it. We follow people who have achieved great things.
To do the ‘great thing’ there is an immense hurdle that has to be overcome. So, if life is feeling hard, just know you’re in the process of earning a very hard-won accomplishment.
Sometimes I wish I never had this health challenge, and then I stop myself. I am incredibly grateful for it. It has made me a more compassionate, wise, resilient, and knowledgeable person. If this topic of conversation comes up, I have a lot to say and a lot of value to provide. On the other hand, someone who has no experience with this wouldn’t have as much value to provide. So if you want to be of service, start to think of your hardest life experiences as actually the value that you get to provide people. We love a good story where the hero overcomes a challenge. You are the hero of your own story.
If you’re struggling with motivation or feeling like you have to ‘provide value’ but don’t know what that is, consider putting in a built-in mechanism for motivation where you will share with other people about the journey and what you’ve learned. That’s essentially what this blog and newsletter is for me. It’s a win-win for you and your audience if they’re invested in learning from your journey.
Don’t just find motivation in ‘achieving the goal,’ find motivation in becoming the type of person who has achieved it
My friend Taylor Elyse Morrison built a self-care app called Inner Workout. She had never built an app before but it’s now available on the Apple Store. The app has incredible functionality that is difficult to build, like blocking social media apps when you want to focus. It’s a huge accomplishment that Taylor built this. I’m proud she’s in my network because if anyone I know ever wants to build an app, I could always say, “My friend Taylor accomplished this. Do you want to chat with her?” When I think of Taylor, I don’t just think of her as the Creator of Inner Workout, I think of her as a person who can teach herself almost anything. It makes me realize that I can do hard things, too.
Perhaps the pursuit of our goals is less about ‘achieving the thing’ and more about becoming the person who is capable of it. I find that to be a much more gratifying goal. I don’t just want to publish a book. I want to be the type of person who sees this goal through, who is a successful writer/author. I can picture her: what she wears to events, the podcasts she’s on, the way she holds herself knowing she achieved it. That is motivating to me.
You don’t have to be perfect or achieve the highest summit to start providing value right now
I love learning from people as they grapple with something and grow. One of my favorite parts of being connected to other ambitious people (you!) is that your journeys, like mine, keep evolving. I think we all want to learn and grow alongside people who are still climbing, who turn back and stretch out their hands for us, who share information with us, and who pull us up beside them.
