By taking a bit of time from your busy schedule, you can set aside some hours aside weekly or monthly or spend a portion of your annual leave pursuing a variety of social goals in your neighborhood, local community or around the world. In this article, you can find some tips on how to set your own social goals. I have also shared some examples of such goals you can use to inspire you in setting your own.
What Are Social Goals?
Social goals can be described as the goals that connect an individual or group to their immediate world — to make an impact, to create values, to affect lives, to provide or preserve social amenities or infrastructure, to solve social problems, and/or to protect the natural environment. Social goals can appear at the individual or corporate level. Corporate social goals are usually described as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), while some personal social goals can be described as community service. The focus of this article is personal social goals.
Why Social Goals Are Important
Setting and pursuing social goals can remind you that you are an important stakeholder in the overall development of society. There are diverse problems in communities and around the world that require more than government efforts. Individuals can join hands with the government to address some of these challenges. Below are some of the reasons you should set social goals and “get involved.”
To Touch Lives
There are many disadvantaged people around the world who also have great potential. When you set goals to meet social needs, such as feeding the poor and educating the underprivileged, you are touching lives and transforming destinies.
To Find Your True Passion
Your social goals can indeed help you find your true passion. In many instances, your chosen career may not be your true passion, even if you are successful. By getting involved in some social responsibilities, you might be able to find your true passion — something to live the rest of your life for.
To Stay Motivated
Meeting social needs and achieving social goals can also be a source of motivation that can boost your performance in other areas of your life. When you focus too much on yourself and your career, you might get bored with routines and begin to lose motivation, but getting involved and achieving results in something different can be a source of motivation that can spill over to your career.
To Boost Your Public Image
While carrying out the honest duties of touching lives and meeting needs, there is a chance that you will begin to get some recognition for what you are doing, and this can boost your public image. You will also get to meet a lot of people and grow your network in your social pursuits.
How to Set Social Goals
Now that you know how important social goals can be, how do you go about setting your own goals and making your own contributions? Here are some tips below:
1. Consider Your Interests
To start setting your own goals, you have to start with your own interests. Search deep within to know if you have had a growing concern about any group of people or any social issues now or in the past. A famous American preacher, Mike Murdock once said:[1] The things that make you feel like you need to do something can help you identify the areas where you can help.
2. Do Some Research
Search your community or online to find the current needs and opportunities available to touch lives and make a positive social impact around the world. For example, you can review the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development[2] to know the priority areas of need and use the information to draw out some of your goals. You can also talk to charities, advocacy groups, or volunteering centers to know what needs they currently have.
3. Look at Your Schedule
The time you can devote to social causes depends on your current schedule, and this will determine how involved you can be and what goals you should set. If you do not have the time, your goals can be more of a financial commitment rather than physical involvement. However, if you have more time to yourself on certain days, you can get involved physically, too.
4. Review Your Abilities
This is about your talent, skills, abilities, expertise, and resources. As much as you want to help, you can’t do anything outside of your own capacity. Check in with your abilities and resources, what can you do, and what needs you can meet. It may be that you do not have the capacity but can mobilize resources and expertise from other sources to meet certain needs.
5. Decide on Your Goals
You will have many options before you, but you have to decide on which goals you want to pursue based on what is most important to you, what you can devote your time to, and what your resources can handle.
10 Examples of Social Goals
Below are 10 examples of social goals you can choose from. They can also inspire you to set your own goals.
1. Be a Volunteer
One of the ways to “get involved” is by being a volunteer, and there are different ways to go about this. For example, you can volunteer to teach your favorite subject at your community school, visit a senior citizens’ center to help, prepare and serve meals at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, etc. If you want to learn how to fit volunteerism into your schedule, this article may help.
2. Donate a Portion of Your Income to Charity
Set a goal to donate a portion of your monthly or annual income to charity. This might also be an option if you do not have the time to get physically involved in an organization.
3. Join an Advocacy Group to Reduce Carbon Emissions
If you have a passion to curb the effects of climate change or to stop environmental degradation, you can start or join an advocacy group to educate, enlighten, and mobilize the public on compliance.
4. Become a Mentor
Sometimes, making yourself available to guide younger people and mentor them might be something you can do to help. Young people are always on the lookout for someone to look up to. Sharing your wealth of experience with young people in your community and guiding them on what steps to take to also become successful can be a great idea.
5. Attend Community Meetings
Attending community meetings will open your eyes to the needs around you. Keep regular attendance and participate in community joint initiatives. You can also volunteer to serve on a community board.
6. Request Charitable Donations on Your Birthdays
Another good initiative is using the occasion of your birthdays to make charitable donations. Asking your friends and well-wishers to support you in this initiative can yield desirable results.
7. Coach a Youth Sports Team
If you are passionate about sports, you can raise new talent by coaching a youth sports team. You can also use the opportunity for youth mentoring.
8. Donate Your Old Clothes
You probably have plenty of clothes in your wardrobe that you don’t get to wear often. Any clothing (apart from clothes reserved for special occasions) that you have not worn for the past six months can be given out. You can also decide to change your wardrobe yearly to give out your old clothes to those who need them.
9. Become CPR Certified
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is a life-saving skill you can acquire to save lives in the event of an emergency. If you get certified, you will not only be able to use it to save lives, but you will also be able to train several others.
10. Help Victims of Natural Disasters
Hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, or forest fires happen around the world, and a countless number of people are suffering the aftermaths of these disasters. You can set a goal to provide help for such people, either by sending relief materials or by volunteering to build temporary shelters.
Final Thoughts
People can be remembered for their personal accomplishments, but the memories that linger most are how they have used their lives and resources to touch lives and make their societies better. Setting and pursuing social goals can give you the opportunity to put your name in the hearts of humans and feature in other people’s life stories.
More Tips on Setting Social Goals
8 Reasons To Start To Do Voluntary Work Now Ways to Give to Charity Without Breaking the Bank Love Can Change The World: 6 Ways To Make An Impact In Your Community
Featured photo credit: Kelly Sikkema via unsplash.com
