Want To Make A Difference? 3 Steps To Expand Your Sphere of Influence

Want To Make A Difference? 3 Steps To Expand Your Sphere of Influence

Inspiration JOurnal CoverInspiration Journal is a locally produced magazine that provides positive reading material for our island ohana.  They asked me to write an article for their recent issue, so I wrote about Positive Media Hawaii’s 3 Steps to becoming a powerful community leader just by being your best self.

Alternative Is The New Normal:

The World Is Ready For Your Message

What if you could be a positive leader in your community just by being your quirky, open minded, happy self?  If you don’t already, I encourage you to see yourself in this way:  you have a sphere of influence. That saying: “one person can make a difference” is really true, and you can be that one person.  You have the power of influence, which is all anyone really has.  We can’t force change but we can influence our community, we can inspire people.  Being a leader in your community means people notice you and what you talk about, which is your message, and it influences them.  So how can we increase our power of influence in our everyday lives? Here is the Positive Media Hawaii 3-Step Strategy:

article page from Inspiration Journal Step 1)  Only when inspired.  We often think change is about inspiring other people but it’s largely about inspiring oneself.  What makes you passionate?  That’s where it all starts: what do you care about?  Where do you want to make a difference?  In Hawaii we say: what’s your kuleana?  When we are fueled by passion then we inspire passion in others.  But we don’t have to force it, it’s ok to not always feel inspired.  On those days when the spirit feels wilted, it’s important to take a break from those issues you care about and go pet the cat, get some exercise, watch a movie, meditate.  Step 1 to increasing your power of influence is to wait until you feel fully inspired and then when you do, move on to Step 2!

Step 2) Focus On What You Want (not on how things are).  Change makers live in the future not the present. Many people merely observe the world around them, get riled up and focus that extra energy on talking about how things are, protesting and blogging about it.   But successful change makers focus completely on what is wanted.  This is an important distinction.  If you want to influence change then give all your energy, all your thoughts, speech and mana to what you want.  This is how you will move mountains.  There are a lot of people out there rabble-rousing and doing activism and then complaining that things don’t change.  It’s because they’re focusing on the problem so that’s the all they can influence.  When everyone else wants to sink into the problem you can stand apart as a positive leader in your community if you can keep saying: “What’s the solution here and let’s keep working on that.”   Which leads to Step Three.

3)  Be the CHEER-Leader. Change makers feel positive about the possibility of the change happening.  This is the third piece to increasing your power of influence.  When everyone else is discouraged by the facts, you hold the enthusiasm for new and growing solutions.  But how do we keep ourselves encouraged when there’s a streaming feed of news and posts of so many unwanted things?  Let’s acknowledge that sometimes it takes work to stay in that cheerful place.  This is the way to do it:  actively and constantly look for evidence of the changes you want to see and then share it with everyone.  This is why I produce Positive Media Hawaii Good News – videos, posts, and emails to inspire our community!  I deliberately created it to highlight evidence of the positive changes happening all around us.   It helps keep me in my cheer-leading place and I invite you to join me:  please Like! us on FaceBook and stay tuned to the Good News with Positive Media eBlasts at www.PositiveMediaHawaii.com

You don’t have to be the boss to influence change, you don’t need 1000 likes on Facebook, you don’t have to be super smart.  Just follow the Positive Media Hawaii Strategy:  If you’re not feeling inspired, take a break!  This is not the time to influence anything.  But when you are feeling inspired (step 1), then focus on what you want (step 2) and feed the enthusiasm of your vision with evidence (step 3).   When you have a vision that you believe is possible and you’re a cheerleader for that vision, then other people will get enrolled.  There is no way to resist you.  Everything will move around you.

AUTHOR:  Joy Waters is a relentless optimist on a mission to have as much fun as possible and stir up the positive revolutionary in us all.  Her company, Positive Media Hawaii, educates and inspires the community by producing videos for web distribution, workshops on communicating effectively using video, and consulting services on media strategy and message creation.  Joy’s current projects include: Keiki Voices Youth Media, Tasty and Meatless Vegan Happiness, Green Solutions, and the Laughing Revolution.  Find out more: www.PositiveMediaHawaii.com