Depending on how you define success and a balanced life, you may include “community service” as part of your overall plan.

What I notice is - those who do include giving back in their definition of “success” seem to possess a greater sense of balance, inner peace and personal satisfaction, than those who don’t make giving back a goal or priority.

As with all of our business and personal goals, we need a set of criteria to establish what the goal will be. As such, I recommend that we answer the following questions when establishing our community service goals:

1. What cause, mission or issue am I passionate about?
2. What would I like to do about it?
3. How much resource can I commit to it? (time, money, influence, material, etc)
4. What do I want out of it? (satisfaction, joy, change, impact, etc)
5. How will I measure success?

When it comes to giving back, it’s easy to let judgment of the legitimacy of the need, or the people involved, cloud our willingness to help. But as a good friend of mine once told me, “All I need to know is that there IS a need.”