As an improvement minded person, I’m constantly looking for the next challenge and I’m usually doing some sort of personal mini challenge to keep things interesting and tackle my goals. Now I’d like to invite this community to join me every month or so as I tackle a different challenge across the areas of money or life.
The Christmas Season
The timing of this challenge is perfect since Christmas is right around the corner.
I’ve always felt that American holidays have been watered down by capitalism and consumerism. Culturally speaking, the Christmas holiday has turned into a hollow spending fest where we exchange gifts funded by money that many of us can’t really afford to part ways with.
Let’s add a wrinkle to the Christmas season to make things richer for us all – no pun intended!
December Challenge: Giving Time and Talents
It’s easy to simply swipe a credit card or order gifts online for the people we love, but it’s much harder to expand our giving to positively impact others. And even harder to not default to throwing money at someone.
That said, the challenge for this month is for us to give our time and talents to others beyond our close family and friends. You can tackle this challenge in any way you see fit, but here are some ideas.
- You own a restaurant and will cook a special holiday meal for families in need.
- You volunteer your time at a shelter or nursing home.
- You do a neighborhood cleanup in a neighborhood that isn’t your own.
- You are a tax professional and offer free tax services to a handful of clients.
- You’re a DJ and you comp your next gig.
These are just some ideas that hopefully drive home the point of how we can all use our time and talents to give a meaningful gift to someone else. Research has reliably proven that giving is beneficial for both the giver and receiver, so this is a great challenge for those who are looking to enrich their lives today.
Drop a comment below and let me know how you could use your time or talents to help someone this holiday season!
8 Responses
This post is a great idea. Christmas has become one big spending spree with little emphasis on the spirit of Christ. I am late to the challenge but will find a small way to give back today
Yep, we almost forget (or never knew) what the whole point of Christmas is. There are always ways to give to others – you are doing this for me as we speak. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Great idea, I look forward to seeing some of the new challenges. Moving to a new city has been very busy for my girlfriend and I but we are looking to serve our new community for a weekend of volunteering in the month of January. Merry Christmas!
Love it! Good luck on the transition (I’ve made quite a few myself). What new city are you guys in?
I applaud you for offering your time as that is our most precious resource. I don’t know what I have to offer, but I would like to say that if anyone is reading this I would be happy to match your offer Moses of 1 hour of time to discuss working in tech, sales, or anything related to travel/credit cards. That has been my passion for the last 10-15 years and I believe I can offer a very personalized take on this. I have given 2 lectures at my company during our wellness month (financial wellness) and I can easily draw from those presentations.
Let’s get you on the show for a chat! I like these topics and will reach out to get something scheduled.
I’ve been thinking more about this lately. I really need to tap into doing this throughout the year not just around the holidays. It’s like why not just step out and do SOMETHING it will go a long way in the end. I remember back in school we would go volunteer at the Ronald McDonald house. That gave me soooo much joy seeing a smile on the staff and a few of the family members that were there. Really taught me about doing something to give back the community. We did lots of volunteer work in the community and it’s something that never leaves you. To be honest with you, the hard part now is figuring out what I want to do. This site actually gives you more insight into it. Check this out. They even had a tab where you can check on what’s happening in your community so I will be looking into that.
https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/gifts-time-talent-and-treasure
We often miss the opportunities that are right under our noses! I also get a bit “busy” at times and forget to think about the community and engaging with other people. Definitely something to be intentional about. Interesting link – I love the mustaches!