Why doing good is also good for you

In this busy world, with our busy lives, it’s easy to forget about things like volunteering or find the time to get around to it. However, volunteering for a good cause or organisation has more benefits to you, your family and entire community then you might think. It enables you to learn things you might have never learned otherwise, it can enhance your career and help others in the process.

Volunteering for a good cause or organisation has more benefits to you, your family and the entire community then you might think. 

So, let’s begin with the benefit it has for others. With busy schedules, helping others might not always be the first priority. But the impact you could have on someone else’s life, just by helping them with something they aren’t able to do themselves, is far greater than you might think. By helping disabled or elderly to paint, go on a trip or just walk outside and interact with them, you’d make their day. The great group of friends most of us have and take for granted, aren’t that normal to others. So, having people to talk to and do something fun with will have a bigger impact than you might think. This is, of course, an example of a type of volunteering, but there are many other options to choose from.

Like I said before, volunteering doesn’t just benefit others, it will also benefit you. Volunteering can help reduce stress, combat depression, keep you mentally stimulated, make new friends, and provide a sense of purpose. A research published by Harvard measured the relationship between happiness and volunteering, and they found that the more people volunteer, the happier they are.

The more people volunteer, the happier they are

The odds of being ‘very happy’ rose 7% among people who volunteered monthly, 12 % for those who volunteered every two to four weeks, and 16% for the ones who volunteered weekly. But that doesn’t mean that you have to spend a large amount of time volunteering to benefit from these things. Giving in simple ways can help others in need and improve your own health and happiness.

Giving in simple ways can help others in need and improve your own health and happiness.

Volunteering also has an economic value. It has a big impact in a sociality, although this might not always be visible. Last year, the value of all the voluntary work (which was about 2 billion hours in the VS) was estimated at around 23 billion dollars. And the societal benefits, which have an even greater magnitude, aren’t even accounted for. Besides that, voluntary work also has a good effect on your career. Studies show that volunteering can provide many connections, you can improve certain skills, learn to communicate with others better and gain experience. For example, by volunteering as an advocate, to raise awareness for a good cause, while further developing public speaking, communicating and marketing skills.  All these factors improve your chance to find a job and grow in your career.

So, different then you might think, volunteering doesn’t have to take a huge amount of time or be useless to yourself. It could be once a week, a month or even a year. No matter how much time you spent helping someone else, you helped someone. I hope we can all agree by saying that doing something for someone else without automatically gaining something from it yourself, is a very valuable thing. But if this isn’t enough to free up some time in your schedule, also consider the fact that you can make it fun, learn something new and meet new people. So I’d suggest looking for a volunteering job you think you’d enjoy, and make a difference for others and yourself. The world can use a do-gooder like you know you are!

Sterre van Woerden 
10-05-2018

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