How Do You Make Your Actions Lasting and Meaningful?
An Inner-world Exploration
We would all like to feel we have value, that we contribute. How do we make our actions lasting and meaningful? I pose a question to which I have no immediate answer. I just really like the question.
When a phrase like this asks me to explore it, to understand what it means to me and how to apply it, I usually begin with the dictionary to expand my awareness and interpretation of the meaning of the words. “Lasting” means enduring, permanent. “Meaningful” means significant, consequential. I want my actions to be all of that.
To make my actions lasting and meaningful, I begin by working to identify my purpose, deepening my own understanding of my unique gifts and what’s calling me from my core. Then I figure out how to express that in my life.
What is calling you? Find the form
You know what’s calling you. Put it into descriptive words, a label perhaps. I am a ….
I see myself as a spiritual philosopher, an explorer, a map-maker and messenger. Only lately have I realized that I am still a teacher.
How do you express what’s calling you? How do you see your role?
When you have passion behind what you do, it deepens your impact on everyone you meet. Your enthusiasm and excitement is as effective as the work you do, the service you perform. You affect all who come across your path.
My initial actions can be very subtle. I can be sitting here doing whatever, and suddenly a thought comes barreling into my awareness and I’m deeply called to explore the meaning behind that idea.
I want to understand the concept and if it resonates deeply, I try to figure out ways to add it to my life. And I need and want to share what I discover.
The initial call is incredibly powerful to me. The need/desire/calling to figure out is imperative. And writing it in a form to share with others not only helps me complete my inquiring process, but offers my insights to others as well.
The form of your offering begins with what’s calling you.
Action – Take your calling to the world
Our actions create our life experience. What we think, say, do, and believe are reflected back to us in our lives. We are to learn to choose actions that are in alignment with our highest good.
Our actions impact what we receive. What we put out, we get back. Anger brings back more anger. Love brings back more love. We get to choose what we receive by being conscious of the energy we put out.
Our actions also impact what others receive and absorb from us. Just as we are affected by the vibrations we put out, so are those around us affected by the level of vibration we emanate. Do you have an idea of how your presence is perceived by others? This is not about pleasing others, it’s about being aware of how you walk in the world. How your mere presence affects others.
The choices and actions we take are vital. How we conduct ourselves – the words we use, how we interact with others. Just the simple act of being present is a meaningful action that has deep impact.
The focus of our actions affects our impact. What we choose to do with our lives, in our lives, leads us on a path of our own making. It’s not about what we achieve, it’s about how we go about our lives – our attitude, our consideration, our compassion.
The form our work takes is revealing. We may be a leader, a team player, an individual stand-out or a steady support person. That’s the form our action takes. How we take that action is key not just to our physical-plane success but to our inner, spiritual development as well.
Action is in our deeds, our behavior, or conduct and our endeavors. It is also in our thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.
What is a “meaningful” action?
What is meaningful to you includes experiences that feel significant, impactful, important, relevant, important, and worthwhile.
Spend some time considering what is meaningful to you. Begin there. That will dictate your calling, your actions, your focus, and your development.
We are talking about how to make your actions meaningful and lasting. But to whom? The world, others, your family? Who do you want to impact? Who do you want to see your existence as meaningful? Who do you want to reach?
You will know about some of your impact. Much of it, you will not. A simple smile may be enough to have a meaningful and lasting impact on a person who needs it at that very moment.
A less tangible impact may be something someone said to you a long time ago that you have based a lot of your life upon. That could be a parent, a teacher, or a friend who encouraged you and that led you to steps to build on that encouragement. Words of encouragement are very impactful.
We may not have to look very far afield to understand the many ways our actions, both large and small, can be meaningful and lasting.
We want our work to be lasting
Lasting means “abide or able to endure over a long period of time.” It has a deep vibration, a profound effect.
To be lasting means that the action you took created change. It created change in someone’s outlook. It created change in someone’s understanding. It created change in what someone thought was possible or what they thought they deserved. It changed them. It changed what they thought, or perceived or considered or chose.
A very simple action or thought can make a lasting change.
“Lasting” means a change at the core
This phrase “make your actions lasting and meaningful” came from something I read. I don’t even remember what. But look where it’s taking us. I feel this exploration shift me as I compose this piece. It has made me stop and think and consider and wonder and question and … That’s a lot of impact for a few words.
And whoever wrote them will never know the adventure those few words are taking us upon.
You won’t necessarily know who and how you affect others.
“Lasting” means inner work
Just as we don’t know who our actions and words will impact, we don’t know how.
But lasting change begins within.
My work is to identify ideas and concepts that lead me into greater clarity and incorporate them as an actual practice in my life.
That purpose will impact what I choose to write in my posts and newsletter to share with others.
That purpose will impact how I interact with the people close to me and the people not so close to me.
That choice is certainly going to impact my spiritual practice. When I start holding up each action I take to the measuring stick of “meaningful and impactful”, I will leave a pile of ideas on the floor and choose the ones that are – yes – meaningful and impactful to both me and those I serve.
Choice and your measuring stick
I rely very heavily on my inner voice. It hollered at me to write down that phrase. It immediately demanded that I write the first draft to begin to figure out what it meant to me. It was clearly important to my inner self that I both understand this concept and figure out how to absorb it into my life. And as I live with this idea of wanting my actions to be meaningful and lasting, I have set up a new measuring stick to help me select the next steps I take.
Sometimes we don’t know what will be meaningful and impactful
A long time ago, I remember walking across Central Park in New York City with a friend who said, “We are rocks. People depend on us.” I was a bit startled at the idea, but I recognized myself in her statement. I asked, “Where do rocks get help?” “From other rocks,” was her reply.
That was 45 years ago. And that idea, that image has profoundly affected my life and how I live it.
We simply do not know and may never know, how we help to change the lives of others.
So besides raising our own vibrations, expanding our spiritual exploration and consciously trying to serve others, we have to simply be true to ourselves. The more we deepen our own spiritual awareness, the stronger our light becomes and the more attractive and vital and meaningful our light presence becomes to others.
We may never know
I can have an intention to have my choices be meaningful and lasting but I’m not always going to know if they are. But I absorb this idea and look for ways to raise my own vibration, to be of greater service in the world, and I hope, I intend, that what I offer, what I provide, will be both meaningful and impactful when it moves out into the world.
Deeper Song Affirmation
I choose to make my actions lasting and meaningful.
Deeper Song Process
- List what you think makes your life and work meaningful. To you. To others.
- Of those things you have listed, what do you think may have the most lasting impact? To whom? Why?
- Do you see any changes you would like to make?
- Do that.
Deeper Song Affirmation
My life is meaningful and impactful.
To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:
Does Your Work Stir Your Heart?
What Are Your Weaving in Your Reality?
How to Interpret the Messages From Within
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