Getting motivated to serve others
We live in a selfish world, we all think about ourselves and the things we want most of the time. It is hard to ever think about the needs of others, but when we do it makes us feel really good. So, how can you get motivated to serve others? Try some of the following tips:
1. Do it occasionally. You will love the feelings you have when you serve people, and this will help you to be motivated to do it more often. It can be almost like a high. Have you ever seen someone with a need, even just a small need, and you filled it? Like a single mom at church with two rowdy children, if you offer to help her out, she will be relieved, be able to enjoy the meeting, and you will get the great feeling of satisfaction that comes with knowing you made a difference, you helped, you matter, and you served someone else. It is like the saying practice makes perfect, the more you serve the more motivated you will be to serve. Service feels good, not because others recognize your efforts but because it makes life a little more meaningful. It is nice to be able to help someone have a better day, so start small if service intimidates you. If you see your neighbor's garbage outside their door, take it to the dumpster for them. If you rent a good movie you think a neighbor would enjoy, take it over to them when you are through. There are a lot of little ways to serve that make a difference. Of course you can also do larger service projects like drive a working mom's kids home from school each day, or taking dinner to a family of ten whose father passed away. Try it, it will motivate you to keep doing it.
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2. Schedule service into your timetable, and you will be more motivated to do it because it you actually have time to. One of the biggest, and worst excuses for not serving others is that we do not have time. So, to get motivated make time. Put some service time into your schedule. You do not need to schedule a lot of time. You can do service by taking someone who is ill dinner. And this is not going to take you long because you will be eating dinner yourself, so just make a little extra, and all it takes is the drive time to get it there. Schedule in service and your motivation will be higher because you will see the need to serve on your schedule, and you will know that you have set time aside specifically for it.
3. Recognize the need. One of the best motivators for serving others is just becoming aware of what a huge need there is for service. If you do not know where to serve, contact a leader in your church, they are likely to know of hundreds of opportunities for service, things like taking a meal to someone who has just had a baby, to reading to the blind, to monetary forms of serving others. If you take the time to look you will see that there is a real need out there for those who have to serve those who do not. Or for those who can to serve those who can not. When you see that someone is struggling with something you can help with, do you ignore the problem or do you feel a sort of pull to help? Most feel a pull to help. This is how looking at the need motivates you to start serving others. You feel almost obligated, but in a good way, when you see that you have something to offer.
