Give of Yourself!

Does anyone else stress over getting just the right gift for people? Regular small gifts of appreciation aren’t too much of a struggle, but when you get into the high stakes birthday or Christmas presents it’s a whole new level of concern. At least those are the thoughts I struggled with until my 10 year old taught me better. His Christmas gift to my wife was simple; a hand made, giant paper fortune teller. It was complete with Christmas colors and handwritten notes of appreciation from family members he had brought into side rooms to secretly add to his gift.

Too often we get caught up in the stress of giving material items in an effort to make others feel happy or valued because we think of material value rather than what we have to offer of ourselves. Think about that for a moment. It implies that material possessions are greater than what we offer as a person. I understand that there may be times a material possession (car, house, clothes, etc) is more needed, but continuing to think that material possessions build a better relationship is flawed and leads to a scarcity mindset.

This form of the scarcity mindset (worrying that there is a specific standard that makes us good enough – measured against others – instead of focusing on giving the best of ourselves – measured against our ability. The point is to stop stressing over the “right” material gift and instead focus on creating an abundance of relivable value.

Try these three things to get it done:

• Find and identify value that we have inherent to ourselves
• Match our skill set to what other people need
• Give our time and personal abilities

Performing these three steps will lead you to a mindset of abundance and set you on a path towards providing others with authentic gifts valued for more than their material worth by showing yours. After all, you never know how capable of making a paper fortune teller unless you try. I explain more about this in the video below.

Take the challenge and share with me what happened. I would love to hear your results! One last thing. If you found any value in this or know someone who will, please forward or even better, share it on social and consider subscribing.