Silent benefactors

Here’s something that’s easy to forget: our day-to-day work changes the lives of the people around us.

People are impacted by the efforts we make, what we say, and the way we conduct ourselves.

The challenge, though, is that we almost never know how big of an impact we’re making because it’s not something we can easily quantify.

It’s hard to measure the strength of our impact because many people don’t communicate how much we’ve influenced or helped them.

In other words, even though our work may be changing the lives of the people around us, that feedback may never reach us for one reason or another.

And when we don’t receive that feedback, it can be easy to think that our workday efforts are for nothing, that no one is listening, or that no one is noticing.

But we have to remember that just because we aren’t receiving direct affirmations, that doesn’t mean our work isn’t impactful.

We have silent benefactors all around us whose lives are impacted each and every day by the work we do.

Our efforts create a ripple effect that’s hard to appreciate or quantify, but that reaches far outside of our immediate awareness.

Of course, it would be great to see and hear the results of our efforts in real time.

But if we’re not regularly getting that feedback, it doesn’t mean our work isn’t valuable or is going unnoticed.

Try this:

If you feel like your work isn’t making an impact on others, take a moment to reconsider that assumption.

Bring to mind someone who has given you positive feedback. Then consider how many people you’ve probably influenced in a similar way but who may not have not told you so for one reason or another.

Also consider how you may be a silent benefactor of someone else’s work. Look for opportunities to verbalize the impact they’ve had on you.

We don’t need to wait for major developments to put this concept into practice.

A simple comment like “This helped me today, thanks a lot”, goes a long way.

Go have a great workday.

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